Corticosterone disrupts spatial working memory during retention testing when highly taxed, which positively correlates with depressive-like behavior in middle-aged, ovariectomized female rats.

Autor: Conrad CD; Arizona State University, Department of Psychology, Box 1104, Tempe 85287, AZ, United States. Electronic address: conradc@asu.edu., Peay DN; Arizona State University, Department of Psychology, Box 1104, Tempe 85287, AZ, United States., Acuña AM; Arizona State University, Department of Psychology, Box 1104, Tempe 85287, AZ, United States., Whittaker K; Arizona State University, Department of Psychology, Box 1104, Tempe 85287, AZ, United States., Donnay ME; Arizona State University, Department of Psychology, Box 1104, Tempe 85287, AZ, United States.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Hormones and behavior [Horm Behav] 2024 Aug; Vol. 164, pp. 105600. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Jul 14.
DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2024.105600
Abstrakt: Major Depressive Disorder affects 8.4 % of the U.S. population, particularly women during perimenopause. This study implemented a chronic corticosterone manipulation (CORT, a major rodent stress hormone) using middle-aged, ovariectomized female rats to investigate depressive-like behavior, anxiety-like symptoms, and cognitive ability. CORT (400 μg/ml, in drinking water) was administered for four weeks before behavioral testing began and continued throughout all behavioral assessments. Compared to vehicle-treated rats, CORT significantly intensified depressive-like behaviors: CORT decreased sucrose preference, enhanced immobility on the forced swim test, and decreased sociability on a choice task between a novel conspecific female rat and an inanimate object. Moreover, CORT enhanced anxiety-like behavior on a marble bury task by reducing time investigating tabasco-topped marbles. No effects were observed on novelty suppressed feeding or the elevated plus maze. For spatial working memory using an 8-arm radial arm maze, CORT did not alter acquisition but disrupted performance during retention. CORT enhanced the errors committed during the highest working memory load following a delay and during the last trial requiring the most items to remember; this cognitive metric positively correlated with a composite depressive-like score to reveal that as depressive-like symptoms increased, cognitive performance worsened. This protocol allowed for the inclusion of multiple behavioral assessments without stopping the CORT treatment needed to produce a MDD phenotype and to assess a battery of behaviors. Moreover, that when middle-age was targeted, chronic CORT produced a depressive-like phenotype in ovariectomized females, who also comorbidly expressed aspects of anxiety and cognitive dysfunction.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None.
(Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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