Effects of Abnormal Early Rearing Environments on Fear Memory in Adult Rats

In the present experiment, Pavlovian fear conditioning was adopted to study the effects of different early rearing environments on fear conditioning in adult rats. Weaned rats were reared in three manipulable environments (enriched, social and isolated conditions). After 8 weeks, fear conditioning (characterized by percentage of freezing) was observed and analyzed, and rats’ weight, locomoter activity and foot-shock sensitivity were operated too. The results showed that: (1) Compared with control group, the level of conditioned fear was significantly increased in enriched group, but significantly decreased in isolated group; (2) Enriched and isolated conditions influenced rat’s weight significantly; (3) Different rearing conditions have no effect on locomoter activity and foot-shock sensitivity. These results indicated that early enriched condition could improve the tone-evoked fear conditioning response, while isolated condition impaired the response.

Keywords
Fear conditioning Freezing Enriched condition Isolated condition Locomoter activity Foot-shock sensitivity