Assessment of cFos labeling in the hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex following recent and remote re-exposure to an unreinforced open field in preadolescent and postadolescent rats

Spatial tasks are often goal-directed or reward-facilitated confounding the assessment of “pure” recent and remote spatial memories. The current work re-exposed preadolescent and postadolescent male rats to a non-reinforced, free exploration task to investigate cFos patterns within the hippocampus and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) associated with recent and remote periods. Male rats were exposed to an open field task for one, 30 min session on postnatal day (P) 20, 25, or 50 and re-exposed for 30 min at either a recent (24 hours) or remote (3 weeks) timepoint. Distance traveled in the open field was measured as well as cFos labeling. In the P20 age group, there was elevated exploration at the 24-hour and 3-week tests compared to training and compared to the other age groups. In the hippocampus CA1, cFos levels were higher after the remote test than the recent test in the P20 group but higher after the recent test than remote test in the P25 and P50 groups. cFos labeling in the ACC was higher in all remote-tested groups compared to the recent-tested groups across all ages. In the P20, the 24-hour test was associated with less CA1 activity than the other age groups supporting the hypothesis that the hippocampus is not fully developed at this time point. In the P20 group, the remote representation of this task did not seem to be complete as there continued to be CA1 activity along with ACC activity following the remote test associated with elevated exploration. These results indicate the utility of unreinforced spatial navigation tasks for exploring systems consolidation processes over the lifespan and show that a fully developed hippocampus is required for optimal systems consolidation.