Estrous Cycle Impacts Fear Extinction and Relapse in Female Adolescent Rats

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Autori principali: August Gable, Rick Richardson, Kathryn D. Baker
Natura: Artículo Open Access
Pubblicazione: Wiley 2025
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author August Gable
Rick Richardson
Kathryn D. Baker
author_facet August Gable
Rick Richardson
Kathryn D. Baker
August Gable
Rick Richardson
Kathryn D. Baker
collection Wiley Open Access
contents Estrous Cycle Impacts Fear Extinction and Relapse in Female Adolescent Rats August Gable Rick Richardson Kathryn D. Baker Developmental Psychobiology ABSTRACT Adolescent male rodents and humans exhibit impairments in extinguishing learned fear. Here, we investigated whether female adolescent rats exhibit such impairments and if extinction is affected by the estrous cycle as in adults. Following fear conditioning to a discrete cue, female adolescent Sprague Dawley rats were extinguished either around the onset of puberty, when estrous cycling begins, or across different stages of the estrous cycle. Both extinction retention and renewal (a form of relapse) were assessed. Peri‐pubertal females had comparable freezing during extinction training and tests of extinction retention and fear renewal as age‐matched males. They were noted to generally be in metestrus, a low estradiol phase, at extinction training. Postpubertal females that received extinction training in proestrus (high estradiol phase), but not metestrus (low estradiol phase), had lower freezing during extinction training and retention than males; males exhibited more freezing during a renewal test than both groups of females. Our findings suggest that female adolescent rats have reduced fear during extinction training and retention compared to males only when extinguished in a high‐estradiol phase. These findings suggest fear inhibition fluctuates across the estrous cycle in adolescence, and estradiol may protect females against impairments in fear extinction during this developmental period. 10.1002/dev.70084 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
doi_str_mv 10.1002/dev.70084
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license_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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publisher Wiley
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spellingShingle Estrous Cycle Impacts Fear Extinction and Relapse in Female Adolescent Rats
August Gable
Rick Richardson
Kathryn D. Baker
Developmental Psychobiology
Estrous Cycle Impacts Fear Extinction and Relapse in Female Adolescent Rats August Gable Rick Richardson Kathryn D. Baker Developmental Psychobiology ABSTRACT Adolescent male rodents and humans exhibit impairments in extinguishing learned fear. Here, we investigated whether female adolescent rats exhibit such impairments and if extinction is affected by the estrous cycle as in adults. Following fear conditioning to a discrete cue, female adolescent Sprague Dawley rats were extinguished either around the onset of puberty, when estrous cycling begins, or across different stages of the estrous cycle. Both extinction retention and renewal (a form of relapse) were assessed. Peri‐pubertal females had comparable freezing during extinction training and tests of extinction retention and fear renewal as age‐matched males. They were noted to generally be in metestrus, a low estradiol phase, at extinction training. Postpubertal females that received extinction training in proestrus (high estradiol phase), but not metestrus (low estradiol phase), had lower freezing during extinction training and retention than males; males exhibited more freezing during a renewal test than both groups of females. Our findings suggest that female adolescent rats have reduced fear during extinction training and retention compared to males only when extinguished in a high‐estradiol phase. These findings suggest fear inhibition fluctuates across the estrous cycle in adolescence, and estradiol may protect females against impairments in fear extinction during this developmental period. 10.1002/dev.70084 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Estrous Cycle Impacts Fear Extinction and Relapse in Female Adolescent Rats
topic Developmental Psychobiology
url https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dev.70084