Acute stress, but not corticosterone, facilitates acquisition of paired associates learning in rats using touchscreen-equipped operant conditioning chambers
© 2018 Elsevier B.V. Acute stress influences learning and memory in humans and rodents, enhancing performance in some tasks while impairing it in others. Typically, subjects preferentially employ striatal-mediated stimulus-response strategies in spatial memory tasks following stress, making use of f...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
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2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/81118 |
| _version_ | 1848764319003574272 |
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| author | Roebuck, A.J. Liu, M.C. Lins, Brittney Scott, G.A. Howland, J.G. |
| author_facet | Roebuck, A.J. Liu, M.C. Lins, Brittney Scott, G.A. Howland, J.G. |
| author_sort | Roebuck, A.J. |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | © 2018 Elsevier B.V. Acute stress influences learning and memory in humans and rodents, enhancing performance in some tasks while impairing it in others. Typically, subjects preferentially employ striatal-mediated stimulus-response strategies in spatial memory tasks following stress, making use of fewer hippocampal-based strategies which may be more cognitively demanding. Previous research demonstrated that the acquisition of rodent paired associates learning (PAL) relies primarily on the striatum, while task performance after extensive training is impaired by hippocampal disruption. Therefore, we sought to explore whether the acquisition of PAL, an operant conditioning task involving spatial stimuli, could be enhanced by acute stress. Male Long-Evans rats were trained to a predefined criterion in PAL and then subjected to either a single session of restraint stress (30 min) or injection of corticosterone (CORT; 3 mg/kg). Subsequent task performance was monitored for one week. We found that rats subjected to restraint stress, but not those rats injected with CORT, performed with higher accuracy and efficiency, when compared to untreated controls. These results suggest that while acute stress enhances the acquisition of PAL, CORT alone does not. This dissociation may be due to differences between these treatments and their ability to produce sufficient catecholamine release in the amygdala, a requirement for stress effects on memory. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:17:28Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-81118 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T11:17:28Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-811182021-01-15T06:58:29Z Acute stress, but not corticosterone, facilitates acquisition of paired associates learning in rats using touchscreen-equipped operant conditioning chambers Roebuck, A.J. Liu, M.C. Lins, Brittney Scott, G.A. Howland, J.G. Glucocorticoid Hippocampus Restraint stress Strategy Striatum Animals Association Learning Conditioning, Operant Corpus Striatum Corticosterone Hippocampus Learning Male Memory Paired-Associate Learning Rats Rats, Long-Evans Stress Disorders, Traumatic, Acute © 2018 Elsevier B.V. Acute stress influences learning and memory in humans and rodents, enhancing performance in some tasks while impairing it in others. Typically, subjects preferentially employ striatal-mediated stimulus-response strategies in spatial memory tasks following stress, making use of fewer hippocampal-based strategies which may be more cognitively demanding. Previous research demonstrated that the acquisition of rodent paired associates learning (PAL) relies primarily on the striatum, while task performance after extensive training is impaired by hippocampal disruption. Therefore, we sought to explore whether the acquisition of PAL, an operant conditioning task involving spatial stimuli, could be enhanced by acute stress. Male Long-Evans rats were trained to a predefined criterion in PAL and then subjected to either a single session of restraint stress (30 min) or injection of corticosterone (CORT; 3 mg/kg). Subsequent task performance was monitored for one week. We found that rats subjected to restraint stress, but not those rats injected with CORT, performed with higher accuracy and efficiency, when compared to untreated controls. These results suggest that while acute stress enhances the acquisition of PAL, CORT alone does not. This dissociation may be due to differences between these treatments and their ability to produce sufficient catecholamine release in the amygdala, a requirement for stress effects on memory. 2018 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/81118 10.1016/j.bbr.2018.04.027 eng restricted |
| spellingShingle | Glucocorticoid Hippocampus Restraint stress Strategy Striatum Animals Association Learning Conditioning, Operant Corpus Striatum Corticosterone Hippocampus Learning Male Memory Paired-Associate Learning Rats Rats, Long-Evans Stress Disorders, Traumatic, Acute Roebuck, A.J. Liu, M.C. Lins, Brittney Scott, G.A. Howland, J.G. Acute stress, but not corticosterone, facilitates acquisition of paired associates learning in rats using touchscreen-equipped operant conditioning chambers |
| title | Acute stress, but not corticosterone, facilitates acquisition of paired associates learning in rats using touchscreen-equipped operant conditioning chambers |
| title_full | Acute stress, but not corticosterone, facilitates acquisition of paired associates learning in rats using touchscreen-equipped operant conditioning chambers |
| title_fullStr | Acute stress, but not corticosterone, facilitates acquisition of paired associates learning in rats using touchscreen-equipped operant conditioning chambers |
| title_full_unstemmed | Acute stress, but not corticosterone, facilitates acquisition of paired associates learning in rats using touchscreen-equipped operant conditioning chambers |
| title_short | Acute stress, but not corticosterone, facilitates acquisition of paired associates learning in rats using touchscreen-equipped operant conditioning chambers |
| title_sort | acute stress, but not corticosterone, facilitates acquisition of paired associates learning in rats using touchscreen-equipped operant conditioning chambers |
| topic | Glucocorticoid Hippocampus Restraint stress Strategy Striatum Animals Association Learning Conditioning, Operant Corpus Striatum Corticosterone Hippocampus Learning Male Memory Paired-Associate Learning Rats Rats, Long-Evans Stress Disorders, Traumatic, Acute |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/81118 |