Impairment effects of tail suspension stress on spatial memory and its reversal learning in mice

Present work investigated the effects of tail suspension stress (TSS) on spatial memory acquisition, consolidation, and its reversal learning in mice. Eighty-one adult male KM mice were divided into four groups (each group including a TSS subgroup and its control subgroup): absolute spatial memory acquisition and consolidation groups (group AA and CA); relative spatial memory acquisition and consolidation groups (group AR and CR). TSS (20 min) was performed immediately before (acquisition) or after (consolidation) a daily training. Results showed that there was no significant difference between control animals and TSS animals in each group in early spatial memory training days (5-8 d of training). Along with training, the performance of control animals improved significantly, but the performance of TSS animals improved slightly (group AA, CA and AR) or even did not change (group CR) (P < 0.01). Reversal learning was also impaired in TSS animals (P < 0.01). The results indicated that TSS could impair spatial memory acquisition, consolidation and reversal learning (especially the relative spatial memory consolidation and its reversal learning) in mice.