ABSTRACT
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with a variety of neural and behavioral alterations in response to trauma exposure, including working memory impairments. Rodent models of PTSD have not fully investigated chronic or reactive working memory deficits, despite clinical relevance. The present study utilizes footshock trauma to induce a posttraumatic stress state in rats and evaluates the effect of trauma and trauma-paired odor cues on working memory performance in the odor span task. Results demonstrate the emergence of chronic deficits in working memory among traumatized animals by three weeks post-trauma. The presentation of a trauma-paired odor cue was associated with further decrement in working memory performance. Further, anxiety-like behaviors modeling PTSD symptoms can be predicted by the degree of working memory impairment in response to the trauma-paired odor cue. This study enhances existing animal models by establishing face validity of rodent PTSD models through replication of the clinical observations of working memory deficits associated with PTSD. This will pave the way for future work to probe underlying mechanistic dysregulation of working memory following trauma exposure and for future development of novel treatment strategies.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
