Repeated stress causes reversible impairments of spatial memory performance.
Restraint stress, 6 h/day for 21 days, caused an impairment, during acquisition, of the performance of a spatial memory task, the eight-arm radial maze. The impairment was reversible, temporally limited and blocked by phenytoin, a blocker of excitatory amino acid action, or tianeptine, an antidepressant, which lowers extracellular serotonin. These effects on behavior parallel the reversible stress-induced atrophy of dendrites of hippocampal CA3 neurons that are also blocked by the drugs.
Luine
V
V
Department of Psychology, Hunter College, New York, NY 10021.
Villegas
M
M
Martinez
C
C
McEwen
B S
BS
D000818:Animals; D000929:Antidepressive Agents, Tricyclic / Q000494:pharmacology; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology; D010672:Phenytoin / Q000494:pharmacology; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012149:Restraint, Physical; D013037:Spatial Behavior; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D013841:Thiazepines / Q000494:pharmacology; D013997:Time Factors
D000929:Antidepressive Agents, Tricyclic; D013841:Thiazepines; C050504:tianeptine; D010672:Phenytoin