Amnesia for early life stress does not preclude the adult development of posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms in rats.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Traumatic experience can result in life-long changes in the ability to cope with future stressors and emotionally salient events. These experiences, particularly during early development, are a significant risk factor for later life anxiety disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, because traumatic experience typically results in strong episodic memories, it is not known whether such long-term memories are necessary for particular features of PTSD, such as enhanced fear and anxiety. Here, we used a fear conditioning procedure in juvenile rats before maturation of the neural systems supporting declarative memory to assess the necessity of early memory to the later life development of PTSD-related symptoms.

Methods

Nineteen-day old rats were

SUBMITTER: Poulos AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3984614 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature