Rats bred for high anxiety exhibit distinct fear-related coping behavior, hippocampal physiology, and synaptic plasticity-related gene expression.

ABSTRACT: The hippocampus is essential for learning and memory but also regulates emotional behavior. We previously identified the hippocampus as a major brain region that differs in rats bred for emotionality differences. Rats bred for low novelty response (LRs) exhibit high levels of anxiety- and depression-like behavior compared to high novelty responder (HR) rats. Manipulating the hippocampus of high-anxiety LR rats improves their behavior, although no work to date has examined possible HR/LR differences in hippocampal synaptic physiology. Thus, the current study examined hippocampal slice electrophysiology, dendritic spine density, and transcriptome profiling in HR/LR hippocampus, and compared performance on three hippocampus-dependent tasks: The Morris water maze, contextual fear conditioning,

SUBMITTER: Widman AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7377203 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature