title: Accelerated Barnes maze test in mice for assessment of stress effects on memory.
abstract: Repeated restraint stress in rodents impairs spatial memory in a Y-maze test and induces hippocampal neuronal changes that last up to 5 d after the stressor ends. Our goal was to implement a Barnes maze spatial memory test in mice that could be used to validate our findings of social stress induced Y-maze impairment. We measured performance of mice in 5- and 9-day test paradigms previously used in rats and mice, respectively. Selecting features from each paradigm, we implemented a 5-d test (pre-training, training (4 trials/d/3 d) and probe testing for assessment of spatial memory in mice. Stress consisted of placing each test mouse in a stainless steel perforated box (25.5 cm x 21.5 cm x 16.5 cm) within an aggressor's home cage for 6 h/d for 21 d; direct agonistic encounters occurred randomly throughout stress periods. Barnes maze pre-training (habituation) was on day 21 of the stress exposures. In a preliminary experiment, mice that habituated following their last stressor performed poorly relative to unstressed and to those not habituated prior to the last stressor, as demonstrated by a greater latency to escape and more errors. We conclude that acute stress in a chronic stress paradigm may impair spatial memory acquisition.
authors.affiliation: Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Division of Neuroscience, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910-7500, USA.
authors.forename: M Y
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Dawood
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Lumley
authors.forename: C L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Robison
authors.forename: G A
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Saviolakis
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Meyerhoff
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012931:Social Environment; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*