Accelerated Barnes Maze Test in Mice for Assessment of Stress Effects on Memory

• Published in: Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Vol. 1032; no. 1; pp. 304 - 307
• Main Authors: DAWOOD, M Y., LUMLEY, L A., ROBISON, C L., SAVIOLAKIS, G A., MEYERHOFF, J L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.12.2004
• Subjects: Animals; Barnes maze; Male; Maze Learning - physiology; Memory - physiology; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Pilot Projects; Social Environment; social stress; spatial memory; Stress, Psychological - psychology
• ISSN: 0077-8923; 1749-6632
• DOI: 10.1196/annals.1314.047

: Repeated restraint stress in rodents impairs spatial memory in a Y‐maze test and induces hippocampal neuronal changes that last up to 5 d after the stressor ends. Our goal was to implement a Barnes maze spatial memory test in mice that could be used to validate our findings of social stress induced Y‐maze impairment. We measured performance of mice in 5‐ and 9‐day test paradigms previously used in rats and mice, respectively. Selecting features from each paradigm, we implemented a 5‐d test (pre‐training, training (4 trials/d/3 d) and probe testing for assessment of spatial memory in mice. Stress consisted of placing each test mouse in a stainless steel perforated box (25.5 cm × 21.5 cm × 16.5 cm) within an aggressor's home cage for 6 h/d for 21 d; direct agonistic encounters occurred randomly throughout stress periods. Barnes maze pre‐training (habituation) was on day 21 of the stress exposures. In a preliminary experiment, mice that habituated following their last stressor performed poorly relative to unstressed and to those not habituated prior to the last stressor, as demonstrated by a greater latency to escape and more errors. We conclude that acute stress in a chronic stress paradigm may impair spatial memory acquisition.