Article

Effect of chronic stress on spatial memory in rats is attenuated by lithium treatment

Departamento de Bioquı́mica, Instituto de Ciências Básicas da Saúde, UFRGS, Ramiro Barcelos, 2600 (Anexo) Lab. 32, 90035-003, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
Physiology & Behavior DOI:10.1016/S0031-9384(03)00113-6 pp.143-149

ABSTRACT Stress is known to alter cognitive functions, such as memory, and it has been linked to the pathophysiology of mood and anxiety disorders. Chronic lithium treatment is used in some psychiatric disorders and has been suggested to act upon mechanisms which can enhance neuronal viability. The purpose of this work is to investigate a possible effect of lithium treatment in a chronic stress model. Adult male Wistar rats were divided in two groups, control and chronically stressed, treated either with normal chow or with chow containing LiCl for 40 days. Stress treatment was a chronic variable stress model, consisting of different stressors which were applied in a random fashion, once a day, every day. Memory was assessed by using the water maze task. The results demonstrated a marked decrease in reference memory in the water maze task in chronically stressed rats. This effect was attenuated by lithium treatment in all the parameters considered. No effect was observed in the working memory. These results indicate that lithium treatment may counteract some effects of chronic stress situations, particularly concerning spatial memory.

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Keywords

Adult male Wistar rats
 
anxiety disorders
 
Chronic lithium treatment
 
chronic stress model
 
chronic stress situations
 
chronic variable stress model
 
chronically
 
cognitive functions
 
different stressors
 
lithium treatment
 
marked decrease
 
normal
 
possible effect
 
psychiatric disorders
 
random fashion
 
reference memory
 
spatial memory
 
Stress treatment
 
water maze task
 
working memory
 

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