Ketamine anesthesia enhances fear memory consolidation via noradrenergic activation in the basolateral amygdala.

Ketamine anesthesia enhances fear memory consolidation via noradrenergic activation in the basolateral amygdala. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2020 Dec 14;:107362 Authors: Morena M, Colucci P, Mancini GF, De Castro V, Peloso A, Schelling G, Campolongo P Abstract Trauma patients treated with ketamine during emergency care present aggravated early post- traumatic stress reaction which is highly predictive of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) development and severity. The use of ketamine in the acute trauma phase may directly or indirectly interfere with neural processes of memory consolidation of the traumatic event, thus leading to the formation of maladaptive memories, a hallmark symptom of PTSD. We have recently shown that ketamine anesthesia, immediately after a traumatic event, enhances memory consolidation and leads to long-lasting alterations of social behavior in rats. Based on the evidence that ketamine induces a robust central and peripheral adrenergic/noradrenergic potentiation and that activation of this system is essential for the formation of memory for stressful events, we explored the possibility that the strong sympathomimetic action of ketamine might underlie its memory enhancing effects. We found that rats given immediate, but not delayed, post-training ketamine anesthesia (125 mg/kg) presented enhanced 48-h memory retention in an inhibitory avoidance task and that these effects were blocked by adrenal medullectomy, lesio...
Source: Neurobiology of Learning and Memory - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Neurobiol Learn Mem Source Type: research