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Published on: August 24, 2012
Acute Restraint Stress Impairs Aversive Memory Retention but Not Memory Formation
Aline Lima Dierschnabel1, Diana Aline Nôga1,2, Luiz Eduardo Mateus Brandão1,3
1Laboratory of Neurochemical Studies, Physiology and Behaviour Department, Post-Graduation Program in Psychobiology, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), Natal 59078-970, Brazil.
None:
Stress can alter neurochemical signalling, affecting memory processing, but its underlying neurobiological mechanism remains unclear. Here, we investigate the effect of acute restraint stress (ARS) on long-term retention of aversive memory in rats. We exposed the animals to either handling or an ARS protocol and tested the rats in the plus-maze discriminative avoidance task (PMDAT). Also, we performed immunohistochemistry assays to unveil the effect of stress on neuronal activity. We found that ARS immediately after training does not impair memory formation but hinders retention. Training triggers a peak of C-fos 1 h later and a delayed 18 h increase in Zif268 in dorsal CA1. The same does not occur when ARS is experienced immediately after training. We demonstrated that the crucial role of Zif268 and C-fos signalling in maintaining PMDAT LTM. ARS is more relevant for memory retention than for the formation of discriminative aversive memory.
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