【Animal Modeling】-Effects of chronic corticosterone treatment on learning and memory and synapse-related proteins in mice

  Objective: To establish a drinking method, chronically administer corticosterone, and observe the effects of corticosterone on learning and memory and synapse-related proteins.

  Methods: Male c57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into normal group and corticosterone group, 10 mice in each group. The corticosterone group drank 0.45% hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin solution containing corticosterone, 5 mg/(kg·d). Animals in the normal group were given 0.45% hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin solution. After 35 days of modeling, social recognition experiment and water maze experiment were performed. After the behavioral experiment, the animals were decapitated and the hippocampus was taken, and the synapse-related proteins were determined by western blot.

  RESULTS: The social recognition experiment showed that both the normal group and the corticosterone group took longer to smell the stimulated cage than the empty cage (P < 0.05). The sniffing time of the control group was longer than that of the stimulation mouse 2 (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference between the sniffing time of stimulated rat 2 and the sniffing time of stimulated rat 1 in the corticosterone group. The results of positioning navigation in the water maze experiment showed that the learning ability of the corticosterone group was decreased, and the platform-seeking latency was prolonged (P<0.05). The results of spatial exploration showed that the number of times of passing through the platform, the number of entering the quadrant of the real platform and the distance to the quadrant of the actual platform were significantly decreased in the corticosterone group (P < 0.05, P < 0.05, P < 0.05). Western blot results showed that the corticosterone group had postsynaptic density (PSD-95), synapsin-1 (Syn-1) and phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) in the corticosterone group. ) expression was significantly decreased (P < 0.01, P < 0.01, P < 0.05).

  CONCLUSION: Chronic administration of corticosterone through drinking can cause social memory and spatial learning and memory impairments in animals, which may be related to the decreased expression of synapse-related proteins in the hippocampus and the impairment of synaptic function.