CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

103) 2008. Soria, G.; Serrano, L.; García, S.; Landa, A.I.; Lafuente Sánchez, J.V.; Baiardi, G.; Gargiulo, P.A. Cognitive effects of noradrenergic receptors antagonism in Nucleus Accumbens. XXVI Reunión Anual de la Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo. Mendoza, 5 a 7 de Diciembre de 2008.- Noradrenergic receptors are distributed in several structures of the brain such as nucleus accumbens (Acc), the major component of ventral striatum. In this study we evaluate the interaction of beta 1 receptors in the Acc and memory mechanisms. It was used a group of animals stereotaxically implanted into the Acc. One week after surgery, rats were placed in a passive avoidance task. In the first part of this test, animals were somited to an electric shock in a black chamber which is next to a white one, both separated by a little door. The rats receive saline, Atenolol 1mg/ml or Metoprolol 1mg/ml ten minutes before training (acquisition or pretraining schedule) or immediately after the shock (consolidation or post-training schedule). One day later, animals were placed into the white chamber and the door was removed.The time taken between the removal of the door until the introduction of the head into the dark chamber (latency 1) and the rat placing four feet onto the grill (latency 2) was recorded. The number of fecal boli expelled durign the training and the retrieval were counted in both experiments. Atenolol treatment significantly modified latency 1 (p<0.01) and latency 2 (p<0.01 ) in pretraining schedule and latency 2 (p<0.05) in post training schedule. There was not significant differences between saline controls and metoprolol injected rats. Our results sugest that antagonism of beta 1 adrenergic receptors in Acc mediated by atenolol disrupts aquisition and consolidation of memory.