Sex differences in aversive memory in rats: Possible role of extinction and reactive emotional factors

Studies usually show better spatial learning in males and stronger emotional memory in females. Spatial memory differences could relate to diverse strategies, while dissimilar stress reactions could cause emotional memory differences. We compared male and female rats in two emotional (classical emot...

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Published in:	Brain and cognition Vol. 74; no. 2; pp. 145 - 151
Main Authors:	Ribeiro, Alessandra M., Barbosa, Flávio F., Godinho, Monique R., Fernandes, Valéria S., Munguba, Hermany, Melo, Thieza G., Barbosa, Marla T., Eufrasio, Raí A., Cabral, Alícia, Izídio, Geison S., Silva, Regina H.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01-11-2010 Elsevier
Subjects:	Affectivity. Emotion Analysis of Variance Animal Animals Anxiety Avoidance Learning - physiology Biological and medical sciences Conditioning (Psychology) - physiology Discrimination (Psychology) - physiology Electroshock Emotional level Emotions - physiology Exploratory Behavior - physiology Extinction Extinction, Psychological Fear - physiology Female Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology Gender Learning Learning. Memory Male Memory Memory - physiology Personality. Affectivity Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry Psychology. Psychophysiology Rats Rats, Wistar Sex Characteristics Learning Anxiety Gender Extinction Memory Emotional level Affect affectivity Rat Rodentia Sex Cognition Emotion emotionality Experimental study Vertebrata Mammalia Acquisition process Animal Conditioning Spatial memory
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Summary:	Studies usually show better spatial learning in males and stronger emotional memory in females. Spatial memory differences could relate to diverse strategies, while dissimilar stress reactions could cause emotional memory differences. We compared male and female rats in two emotional (classical emotional conditioning and aversive discrimination memory) and two emotionally “neutral” tasks: (1) plus-maze discriminative avoidance, containing two open and two enclosed arms, one of which presenting aversive stimuli (light/noise). No differences were found in learning, retrieving, or basal emotional levels, while only male rats presented extinction of the task; (2) contextual fear conditioning – a cage was paired to mild foot shocks. Upon reexposure, freezing behavior was decreased in females; (3) spontaneous alternation – the animals were expected to alternate among the arms of a four-arm maze. No differences between genders were found and (4) open-field habituation was addressed in an arena which the rats were allowed to explore for 10 min. Habituation was similar between genders. Differences were found only in tasks with strong emotional contexts, where different fear responses and stress effects could be determinant. The lack of extinction of discriminative avoidance by females points out to stronger consolidation and/or impaired extinction of aversive memories.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	0278-2626 1090-2147
DOI:	10.1016/j.bandc.2010.07.012