Effects of chronic decompression anoxia on retention in guinea pigs: special considerations at 23,000 feet.

Abstract

"To determine whether chronic exposure (6 hrs. a day; 6 days a week) to conditions of low atmospheric pressure (307 mm. Hg or 23,000 ft.) would impair memory of a learned task, guinea pigs were exposed to 100, 250, 300 and 400 hrs. of accumulative, intermittent decompression. Their retest performance on a simple alternation type of maze was compared with that of unexposed control animals after each period of exposure." No significant differences in either error or trials to reach a criterion were noted between the anoxia groups and the controls. "This finding of little or no impairment of retentive capacity for a learned task in young male guinea pigs exposed to decompression of this severity falls in line with the work of others . . . who report no signs of histopathologic change in brains of guinea pigs exposed to similar conditions of altitude.".