Research reportDissociating effects of acute photic stress on spatial, episodic-like and working memory in the rat

- We compare acute photic stress effects on three memory dependent tasks.
- Focus on the normalization phase of the stress response.
- Spatial memory performance was detrimentally affected in a spatial water maze task.
- Object-location deficits but no temporal-object impairments were observed in an episodic-like memory task.
- Rats' performance was unaffected in an operant delayed matching-to-sample task.

Adaptively responding to acute stress has been of great importance for human and animal survival. However, for our species, stress-related disorders are putting an ever-increasing burden on healthcare systems. It is thus crucial to understand the basic processes and cognitive changes associated with acute stress. Here, we examined the effects of acute stress exposure on spatial (water maze) and memory (delayed match to sample and episodic-memory-like tasks) performance. We found striking performance deficits in stressed animals navigating in the water maze. We also found, in an episodic-like memory task, striking object-location deficits, but not in temporal-object association learning in stressed animals. Finally, no differences were apparent for any delay periods (up to 30 s) in a delayed match to sample task. Taken together, these results show a strong differential effect of acute stress on differing memory processes.