Developmental stress has sex-specific effects on contextual and cued fear conditioning in adulthood

Chavez, Marcia C.; Ragusa, Maria Alessandra; Brooks, Kayla F.; Drake-Frazier, Chakeer; Ramos, Isabella; Zajkowski, Megan E.; Schulz, Kalynn M.

doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2021.113314

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 69 publications

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“…This study also revealed that PS mice were not impaired in contextual fear memory, which is in accordance with previous studies performed in prenatally-stressed rats (Markham et al, 2010;Wilson et al, 2013). There is however a strong discrepancy in studies analyzing fear conditioning after prenatal stress, as some studies also reported specific impairments in contextual fear memory in rats and mice (Griffin et al, 2003;Lee et al, 2011;Chavez et al, 2021). It is likely that species/strain differences, varied prenatal stress protocols and contextual fear memory-testing paradigms can partly explain these discrepancies.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Prenatal stress programs behavioral pattern separation in adult mice

Rajendran

Kaci

Ladevèze

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Stress is an unavoidable condition in human life. Stressful events experienced during development, including in utero, have been suggested as one major pathophysiological mechanism for developing vulnerability towards neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders in adulthood. One cardinal feature of such disorders is impaired cognitive ability, which may in part rely on abnormal structure and function of the hippocampus. In the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus is a site of continuous neurogenesis, a process that has been recently implicated in spatial pattern separation, a cognitive phenomenon that serves to reduce the degree of overlap in the incoming information to facilitate its storage with minimal interference. We previously reported that adult neurogenesis is altered by prenatal stress allowing us to hypothesize that prenatal stress may possibly lead to impairment in pattern separation. To test this hypothesis, both control (C) and prenatally stressed (PS) adult mice were tested for metric and contextual discrimination abilities. We report for the first time that prenatal stress impairs pattern separation process, a deficit that may underlie their cognitive alterations and that may result in defective behaviors reminiscent of psychiatric illness such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Prenatal stress programs behavioral pattern separation in adult mice

Rajendran

Kaci

Ladevèze

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Limited WKY chromosomal regions confer increases in anxiety and fear memory in a F344 congenic rat strain

Ji,

Pashankar,

Harter

et al. 2024

Physiological Genomics

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This study investigated the interaction between genetic differences in stress reactivity/coping and environmental challenge, such as acute stress during adolescence on adult contextual fear memory and anxiety-like behaviors. Fischer 344 (F344) and the inbred F344;WKY-Stresp3/Eer congenic strain (congenic), in which chromosomal regions from the Wistar Kyoto (WKY) strain were introgressed into the F344 background, were exposed to a modified Forced Swim Test (FST) during adolescence while controls were undisturbed. In adulthood, fear learning and memory, assessed by Contextual Fear Conditioning (CFC), were significantly greater in congenic animals compared to F344s, and stress during adolescence increased them even further in males of both strains. Anxiety-like behavior, measured by the Open Field Test (OFT), were also greater in congenics than F344s, and stress during adolescence increased it further in both strains of adult males. Whole genome sequencing of the F344;WKY-Stresp3/Eer strain revealed an enrichment of WKY genotypes in Chromosomes 9,14 and 15. An example of functional WKY sequence variations in the congenic strain, Cannabinoid Receptor Interacting Protein 1 (Cnrip1) had a Cnrip1 transcript isoform that lacked two exons. Although the original hypothesis that the genetic predisposition to increased anxiety of the WKY donor strain would exaggerate fear memory relative to the background strain was confirmed, the consequences of adolescent stress were strain independent but sex dependent in adulthood. Molecular genomic approaches combined with genetic mapping of WKY sequence variations in Chrs 9,14, and 15 could aid in finding quantitative trait genes contributing to the variation in fear memory.

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Developmental stress has sex-specific effects on contextual and cued fear conditioning in adulthood

Cited by 2 publications

References 69 publications

Prenatal stress programs behavioral pattern separation in adult mice

Prenatal stress programs behavioral pattern separation in adult mice

Limited WKY chromosomal regions confer increases in anxiety and fear memory in a F344 congenic rat strain

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