Post-weaning housing conditions influence freezing during contextual fear conditioning in adult rats

HighlightsAdministering midazolam after fear memory reactivation did not induce amnesia.Enriched/impoverished housing conditions did not affect fear memory malleability.Impoverished housing reduced overall contextual freezing during fear conditioning. Abstract The present study aimed to investigate the influence of housing conditions on contextual fear memory malleability. Male Wistar rats were housed in enriched, standard, or impoverished conditions after weaning and remained in these conditions throughout the entire experiment. After six weeks into those housing conditions, all animals underwent a 3‐day protocol including contextual fear conditioning (day 1), memory reactivation followed by systemic administration of midazolam or vehicle (day 2), and a retention test (day 3). Percentage freezing was used as a behavioral measure of contextual fear. There was no evidence for an effect of housing conditions on the sensitivity of contextual fear memory to amnestic effects of post‐reactivation midazolam administration, and no indication for amnestic effects of post‐reactivation midazolam overall (including in the standard group). The inability to replicate previous demonstrations of post‐reactivation amnesia using the same protocol underscores the subtle nature of post‐reactivation pharmacological memory interference. Notably, impoverished housing resulted in a decrease in contextual freezing during contextual fear conditioning, reactivation and retention testing, compared to enriched and standard housing conditions. This observation warrants caution when interpreting the results from experiments regarding effects of housing on fear memory processes, particularly when freezing is used as a measure of fear.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Behavioural Brain Research

• Publication date

  2019-02-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.bbr.2018.10.040PMID 30391556PMCID 6314464
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Post‐reexposure administration of riluzole attenuates the reconsolidation of conditioned fear memory in rats

  2018cited by this paper
• A Novel Retrieval-Dependent Memory Process Revealed by the Arrest of ERK1/2 Activation in the Basolateral Amygdala

  2018cited by this paper
• On the transition from reconsolidation to extinction of contextual fear memories

  2017cited by this paper
• GABAergic signaling within the Basolateral Amygdala Complex modulates resistance to the labilization/reconsolidation process.

  2017cited by this paper
• A comparison of behavioral and pharmacological interventions to attenuate reactivated fear memories

  2017cited by this paper
• Post-reexposure administration of d-cycloserine facilitates reconsolidation of contextual conditioned fear memory in rats

  2017cited by this paper
• Stress-induced resistance to the fear memory labilization/reconsolidation process. Involvement of the basolateral amygdala complex.

  2016cited by this paper
• Prenatal stressors in rodents: Effects on behavior

  2016cited by this paper
• An appetitive experience after fear memory destabilization attenuates fear retention: involvement GluN2B-NMDA receptors in the Basolateral Amygdala Complex

  2016cited by this paper
• Enrichment rescues contextual discrimination deficit associated with immediate shock

  2015cited by this paper
• The Effect of Midazolam and Propranolol on Fear Memory Reconsolidation in Ethanol-Withdrawn Rats: Influence of D-Cycloserine

  2015cited by this paper
• Prediction error and trace dominance determine the fate of fear memories after post-training manipulations

  2015cited by this paper
• Impaired extinction of fear conditioning after REM deprivation is magnified by rearing in an enriched environment.

  2015cited by this paper
• Memory destabilization is critical for the success of the reactivation–extinction procedure

  2013cited by this paper
• On Disruption of Fear Memory by Reconsolidation Blockade: Evidence from Cannabidiol Treatment

  2012cited by this paper
• The impact of environmental enrichment in laboratory rats--behavioural and neurochemical aspects.

  2011cited by this paper
• Evaluation of Social and Physical Enrichment in Modulation of Behavioural Phenotype in C57BL/6J Female Mice

  2011cited by this paper
• Previous Stress Attenuates the Susceptibility to Midazolam's Disruptive Effect on Fear Memory Reconsolidation: Influence of Pre-Reactivation D-Cycloserine Administration

  2010cited by this paper
• The accurate measurement of fear memory in Pavlovian conditioning: Resolving the baseline issue.

  2010cited by this paper
• Isolation rearing-induced deficits in contextual fear learning do not require CRF(2) receptors.

  2010cited by this paper
• Effects of enrichment predominate over those of chronic stress on fear-related behavior in male rats

  2009cited by this paper
• Disruptive Effect of Midazolam on Fear Memory Reconsolidation: Decisive Influence of Reactivation Time Span and Memory Age

  2009cited by this paper
• The role of GABA and anxiety in the reconsolidation of conditioned fear.

  2008cited by this paper
• Behavioural and neurochemical effects of post-weaning social isolation in rodents-relevance to developmental neuropsychiatric disorders.

  2008cited by this paper
• Loss of high‐affinity nicotinic receptors increases the vulnerability to excitotoxic lesion and decreases the positive effects of an enriched environment

  2007cited by this paper
• Refinement of rodent research through environmental enrichment and systematic randomization

  2007cited by this paper
• Midazolam disrupts fear memory reconsolidation.

  2006cited by this paper
• The role of voluntary exercise in enriched rearing: a behavioral analysis.

  2006cited by this paper
• Importance of early environment in the development of post-traumatic stress disorder-like behaviors.

  2006cited by this paper
• Environmental enrichment increases responding to contextual cues but decreases overall conditioned fear in the rat.

  2006influential reference
• Long‐term individual housing in C57BL/6J and DBA/2 mice: assessment of behavioral consequences

  2004cited by this paper
• Influence of Postweaning Social Isolation in the Rat on Brain Development, Conditioned Behavior, and Neurotransmission

  2004cited by this paper
• Effect of social isolation on stress-related behavioural and neuroendocrine state in the rat.

  2004cited by this paper
• Environmental enrichment modifies the PKA-dependence of hippocampal LTP and improves hippocampus-dependent memory.

  2001cited by this paper
• Differential effects of enrichment on learning and memory function in NR2B transgenic mice.

  2001cited by this paper
• Seeing is relieving: electrical synapses between visualized neurons

  2000cited by this paper
• Effects of environmental enrichment on rate of contextual processing and discriminative ability in adult rats.

  2000cited by this paper
• Enrichment induces structural changes and recovery from nonspatial memory deficits in CA1 NMDAR1-knockout mice

  2000cited by this paper
• Effects of multisensory environmental stimulation on contextual conditioning in the developing rat.

  2000cited by this paper
• Isolation rearing-induced disruption of prepulse inhibition: further evidence for fragility of the response.

  1999cited by this paper
• Social deprivation of neonatal, adolescent, and adult rats has distinct neurochemical and behavioral consequences.

  1998cited by this paper
• More hippocampal neurons in adult mice living in an enriched environment

  1997cited by this paper
• The effects of isolation rearing on exploration in the rat

  1977cited by this paper

• A single reminder trial updates fear memory and affects extinction in rats housed under different living conditions

  2025cites this paper
• Appraising reconsolidation theory and its empirical validation

  2022cites this paper
• Non-invasive in vivo MRI detects long-term microstructural brain alterations related to learning and memory impairments in a model of inflammation-induced white matter injury.

  2022cites this paper
• Lack of drug-induced post-retrieval amnesia for auditory fear memories in rats

  2021cites this paper
• Reactivation-Dependent Amnesia for Contextual Fear Memories: Evidence for Publication Bias

  2020cites this paper
• Suppression of ovarian hormones in adolescent rats has no effect on anxiety‐like behaviour or c‐fos activation in the amygdala

  2020cites this paper
• Environmental enrichment increases cue-dependent freezing and behavioral despair but decreases anxiety-like behavior in rats.

  2020cites this paper
• Rats remember: Lack of drug-induced post-retrieval amnesia for auditory fear memories

  2020cites this paper
• Exposure to glyphosate during pregnancy induces neurobehavioral alterations and downregulation of Wnt5a-CaMKII pathway.

  2020cites this paper
• Limited replicability of drug-induced amnesia after contextual fear memory retrieval in rats.

  2019cites this paper
• Post-reexposure administration of d-cycloserine facilitates reconsolidation of contextual conditioned fear memory in rats

  2017cites this paper