Stress-related impairment of fear memory acquisition and disruption of risk assessment behavior in female but not in male mice.

Autor: Nascimento EB; Universidade Federal do Sul da Bahia, Health Science Center, Itabuna, BA, Brazil., Dierschnabel AL; Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Department of Physiology, Natal, RN, Brazil., Lima RH; Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neuroscience, Natal, RN, Brazil., Sousa MBC; Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Department of Physiology, Natal, RN, Brazil., Suchecki D; Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Department of Psychobiology, São Paulo, SP, Brazil., Silva RH; Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Department of Pharmacology, São Paulo, SP, Brazil., Ribeiro AM; Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Department of Biosciences, Santos, SP, Brazil. Electronic address: alessandra.ribeiro@unifesp.br.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Behavioural processes [Behav Processes] 2022 Jun; Vol. 199, pp. 104660. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 May 10.
DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2022.104660
Abstrakt: Stress encompasses reactions to stimuli that promote negative and positive effects on cognitive functions, such as learning and memory processes. Herein, we investigate the effect of restraint stress on learning, memory, anxiety levels and locomotor activity of male and female mice. We used the plus-maze discriminative avoidance task (PMDAT), a behavioral task based on the innate exploratory response of rodents to new environments. Moreover, this task is used to simultaneously evaluate learning, memory, anxiety-like behavior and locomotor activity. Male and female mice were tested after repeated daily restraint stress (4 h/day for 3 days). The results showed stress-induced deficits on aversive memory retrieval only in female mice, suggesting a sexual dimorphism on memory acquisition. Furthermore, stressed females exhibited increased anxiety-like behavior and decreased exploratory behavior. Plasma corticosterone levels were similarly increased by restraint stress in both sexes, suggesting that the behavioral outcome was not related to hormonal secretion. Our findings corroborate previous studies, showing a sexually dimorphic effect of restraint stress on cognition. In addition, our study suggests that stress-related acquisition deficit may be the consequence of elevated emotional response in females.
(Copyright © 2022 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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