Abstract
There is evidence that in rats, partial hippocampal lesions or selective ablation of the CA3 subfield can disrupt retrieval of spatial memory1 and that hippocampal damage disinhibits hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA)-axis activity, thereby elevating plasma levels of adrenocorticotropin and corticosterone2,3. Here we report evidence that attenuation of CA3 lesion-induced increases in circulating corticosterone levels with the synthesis inhibitor metyrapone, administered shortly before water-maze retention testing, blocks the impairing effects of the lesion on memory retrieval. These findings suggest that elevated adrenocortical activity is critical in mediating memory retrieval deficits induced by hippocampal damage.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Q. Griffith, G. Hui and J. Buranday for technical assistance. Supported by USPHS NIMH Grant MH12526 (J.L.M.), NIH RO1 MH53814 (R.M.S.) and the Adler Foundation (R.M.S.).
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Roozendaal, B., Phillips, R., Power, A. et al. Memory retrieval impairment induced by hippocampal CA3 lesions is blocked by adrenocortical suppression. Nat Neurosci 4, 1169–1171 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn766
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn766
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