title: Venlafaxine facilitates between-session extinction and prevents reinstatement of auditory-cue conditioned fear.
abstract: Anxiety disorders, characterized by anxiety and fearfulness, are found to be able to cause abnormal emotional responses' associated with memories of negative events, which implicate pressure on society with an increasingly large burden. Better treatment has been of concern to the community. Venlafaxine (VEN), a nonclassical antidepressant agent, is applied in the treatment of social phobia, major depression (MD) and general anxiety disorder (GAD) and, to a certain extent, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which improves working memory and spatial memory as well as ameliorates emotion by affecting specified brain regions. In this study, we committed to seek a new way for using VEN on treatment of anxiety disorders. To investigate the effect of VEN on extinction of auditory-cue conditioned fear, conditioned rats received a treatment with VEN before extinction training and tests for freezing level of within-session and between-session extinction. To investigate the effect of VEN on reinstatement, all conditioned rats received a treatment with VEN over a period for 21 days. After a rest for 7 days, two tests for freezing level were conducted. We found that: (1) VEN (40mg/kg) treatment at 30min prior to extinction training significantly facilitated the between-session extinction, but not the within-session extinction; (2) chronic administration with VEN (40mg/kg) prevented the return of extinguished auditory-cue fear. These data elucidate the critical role of VEN in auditory-cue fear memory, suggesting that VEN may be an ideal choice for the exposure-based drug treatment and maintenance treatment in patients with GAD, SAD and PTSD.
authors.affiliation: Tianjin Mental Health Institute, Tianjin Mental Health Center, 13, Liu Lin Road, Hexi District, Tianjin 300222, China.
authors.forename: Cheng-Hao
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Hai-Shui
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Wei-Li
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Li-Li
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Ji-Jian
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Si
authors.forename: Meng-Meng
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Suo
authors.forename: Jian-Li
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000009:adverse effects; D000818:Animals; D018687:Antidepressive Agents, Second-Generation / Q000494:pharmacology*; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy*; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000187:drug effects*; D003463:Cues; D003511:Cyclohexanols / Q000494:pharmacology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000187:drug effects*; D005239:Fear / Q000187:drug effects*; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000187:drug effects; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013997:Time Factors; D000069470:Venlafaxine Hydrochloride
chemical_list: D018687:Antidepressive Agents, Second-Generation; D003511:Cyclohexanols; D000069470:Venlafaxine Hydrochloride