title: Acute stress disrupts paired pulse facilitation and long-term potentiation in rat dorsal hippocampus through activation of glucocorticoid receptors.
abstract: Cognitive functions such as learning and memory are widely believed to depend on patterns of short- and long-term synaptic plasticity. Factors, such as acute stress, which affect learning and memory, may do so by altering patterns of synaptic plasticity in distinct neural circuits. Numerous studies have examined the effects of acute stress on long-term synaptic plasticity; however, few have examined its influence on short-term plasticity. The present experiments directly assessed the effects of acute stress on short-term synaptic plasticity as measured by paired pulse facilitation (PPF) of excitatory postsynaptic potentials recorded from rat dorsal hippocampus (dHip) in vivo. Long-term potentiation (LTP) was also examined. Acute stress induced by exposure to an elevated platform impaired PPF and LTP in the dHip. Pretreatment of rats exposed to stress with mifepristone (RU38486; 10 mg kg⁻¹) blocked the stress-induced impairment of both PPF and LTP. These data demonstrate that activation of glucocorticoid receptors during acute stress disrupts normal patterns of both PPF and LTP in the dHip.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Neural Systems and Plasticity Research Group, University of Saskatchewan, 9 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5A5, Canada.
authors.forename: Brittany N
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Cazakoff
authors.forename: John G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Howland
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D004567:Electrodes, Implanted; D004594:Electrophysiology; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000187:drug effects / Q000503:physiopathology*; D017774:Long-Term Potentiation / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D015735:Mifepristone / Q000494:pharmacology; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D011965:Receptors, Glucocorticoid / Q000502:physiology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013569:Synapses / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D011965:Receptors, Glucocorticoid; D015735:Mifepristone