title: Repeated restraint stress impairs auditory attention and GABAergic synaptic efficacy in the rat auditory cortex.
abstract: Chronic stress induces dendritic atrophy in the rat primary auditory cortex (A1), a key brain area for auditory attention. The aim of this study was to determine whether repeated restraint stress affects auditory attention and synaptic transmission in A1. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were trained in a two-alternative choice task (2-ACT), a behavioral paradigm to study auditory attention in rats. Trained animals that reached a performance over 80% of correct trials in the 2-ACT were randomly assigned to control and restraint stress experimental groups. To analyze the effects of restraint stress on the auditory attention, trained rats of both groups were subjected to 50 2-ACT trials one day before and one day after of the stress period. A difference score was determined by subtracting the number of correct trials after from those before the stress protocol. Another set of rats was used to study the synaptic transmission in A1. Restraint stress decreased the number of correct trials by 28% compared to the performance of control animals (p < 0.001). Furthermore, stress reduced the frequency of spontaneous inhibitory postsynaptic currents (sIPSC) and miniature IPSC in A1, whereas glutamatergic efficacy was not affected. Our results demonstrate that restraint stress decreased auditory attention and GABAergic synaptic efficacy in A1.
authors: Laboratory of Behavioral Neurobiology, Centro de Neurobiología y Plasticidad Cerebral, Departamento de Fisiología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile.
authors: Miguel Ángel
authors: MÁ
authors: Pérez
authors: Catherine
authors: C
authors: Pérez-Valenzuela
authors: Felipe
authors: F
authors: Rojas-Thomas
authors: Juan
authors: J
authors: Ahumada
authors: Marco
authors: M
authors: Fuenzalida
authors: Alexies
authors: A
authors: Dagnino-Subiabre
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D059330:GABAergic Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011897:Random Allocation; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012149:Restraint, Physical; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology*