Causal evidence for the involvement of the neural cell adhesion molecule, NCAM, in chronic stress-induced cognitive impairments

In rodents, chronic stress induces long-lasting structural and functional alterations in the hippocampus, as well as learning and memory impairments. The neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) was previously hypothesized to be a key molecule in mediating the effects of stress due to its role in neuronal remodeling and since chronic stress diminishes hippocampal NCAM expression in rats. However, since most of the evidence for these effects is correlative or circumstantial, we tested the performance of conditional NCAM-deficient mice in the water maze task to obtain causal evidence for the role of NCAM. We first validated that exposure to chronic unpredictable stress decreased hippocampal NCAM expression in C57BL/6 wild-type mice, inducing deficits in reversal learning and mild deficits in spatial learning. Similar deficits in water maze performance were found in conditional NCAM-deficient mice that could not be attributed to increased anxiety or enhanced corticosterone responses. Importantly, the performance of both the conditional NCAM-deficient mice and chronically stressed wild-type mice in the water maze was improved by post-training injection of the NCAM mimetic peptide, FGLs. Thus, these findings support the functional involvement of NCAM in chronic stress-induced alterations and highlight this molecule as a potential target to treat stress-related cognitive disturbances. (c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Stress-induced cognitive and psychopathological alterations

Reto Bisaz, Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez

Intensive research over the past few years has provided evidence, that stress is a potent modulator of brain function and cognition. In particular cognitive and emotional processes have been shown to be susceptible to modulation by stress. Whereas acute stress and/or a transient activation of the stress system can have beneficial consequences on learning and memory processes, prolonged or extensive stress can induce structural and functional alterations in various brain regions, which are accompanied by cognitive impairments and emotional changes. Moreover, increasing evidence points out that inappropriate stress response and/or control might be associated with the development and exacerbation of a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders. The neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM), a cell surface macromolecule which is abundantly expressed in the vertebrate nervous system, plays a key role during neural development and has been implicated in activity induced synaptic plasticity as well as cognitive and emotional processes in adulthood. Altered expression of NCAM has been hypothesized to be one of the key events underlying structural and functional alterations in response to stress and accumulating evidence in rodents are showing decreased hippocampal NCAM expression after chronic stress. However, since most of the available evidence for this hypothesis has been either correlational or circumstantial, we aimed here to provide evidence for a causal involvement of NCAM in stress-induced cognitive and emotional disturbances. For this purpose, we evaluated the consequence of 4 weeks of chronic stress in adult wild-type mice on NCAM expression levels in brain regions, known to play a key role in cognition and emotions in a variety of cognitive and emotional tests. We found, that chronically stressed mice have reduced hippocampal NCAM expression levels and display learning and memory impairments, in hippocampus dependent behavioral tasks. Strikingly, similar patterns of cognitive impairments were also found in conditional NCAM-deficient mice, in which the NCAM gene is ablated in the forebrain postnatally. Interestingly, spatial learning and memory impairments of these mice could be recovered by treatments with NCAM mimetic peptides, which are known to potentiate NCAM functioning. Moreover, conditional NCAM-deficient mice displayed increased vulnerability to develop cognitive and emotional disturbances following subchronic stress exposure, a condition which has been shown to induce none (or only slight) structural and behavioral alterations in wild-type rodents. In the amygdala, a brain structure involved in consolidation of emotional memories, NCAM expression was increased in mice exposed to chronic stress. Additionally, chronically stressed mice displayed facilitated auditory fear conditioning, a behavioral task that critically depends on amygdala functions. Contrary, conditional NCAM-deficient mice displayed reduced conditioned auditory fear responses, which indicates a possible involvement of changes in amygdala NCAM expression and altered auditory fear conditioning. Together, the findings of the present study support a functional involvement of alterations in NCAM expression levels in stress-induced cognitive and emotional alterations and highlight this molecule as a potential target for the treatment of stress-related cognitive and emotional disturbances.

EPFL2009

Stress at learning facilitates memory formation by regulating AMPA receptor trafficking through a glucocorticoid action

Lisa Conboy, Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez

Stress and glucocorticoids (GCs) can facilitate memory formation. However, the molecular mechanisms mediating their effects are largely unknown. alpha-Amino-3-hydroxy-5- methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptor (AMPAR) trafficking has been implicated in the changes in synaptic strength at central glutamatergic synapses associated with memory formation. In cell cultures, corticosterone has been shown to condition the synaptic trafficking of the AMPAR GluA2 subunit. In this study, we investigated the involvement of GluA2 trafficking in the facilitation of learning by stress. Using the water maze spatial task involving different stress levels, mice trained under more stressful conditions (water at 22 degrees C) showed better learning and memory, and higher post-training corticosterone levels, than mice trained under lower stress (water at 30 degrees C). Strikingly, this facilitated learning by stress was accompanied by enhanced synaptic expression of GluA2 AMPARs that was not observed in mice trained under less stressful conditions. Interfering with GC actions by injecting the GC synthesis inhibitor, metyrapone, blocked both the memory facilitation and the enhanced GluA2 trafficking induced by stressful learning. Intracerebroventricular infusion of the peptide, pep2m, that blocks GluA2 synaptic trafficking by interfering with the interaction between N- ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor and GluA2, impaired immediate performance at learning as well as long-term memory retrieval, supporting a causal role for GluA2 trafficking in stress-induced facilitation of spatial learning and memory. Evidence for the involvement of the neural cell adhesion molecule N-cadherin in interaction with GluA2 is also provided. These findings underscore a new mechanism whereby stress can improve memory function.Neuropsychopharmacology advance online publication, 4 November 2009; doi:10.1038/npp.2009.172.

Nature Publishing Group2010

Individual differences in anxiety trait are related to spatial learning abilities and hippocampal expression of mineralocorticoid receptors

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez

Although high levels of anxiety might be expected to negatively influence learning and memory, it remains to be shown whether individual differences in anxiety may influence spatial learning and memory in outbred rat populations. We have studied this possibility in male Wistar rats whose levels of anxiety were first characterized as either high (HA) or low (LA) according to their behavior in the elevated plus maze or in the open field test. Subsequently, their performance in the Morris water maze was studied, a task dependent on hippocampal activity. Interestingly, LA rats showed a faster acquisition and better memory in the water maze when compared to HA rats. Indeed, this difference in performance could mainly be attributed to the increase in thigmotactic behavior (swimming in circles close to the maze walls) displayed by HA rats during spatial navigation. Glucocorticoids are known to affect the state of anxiety and the hippocampus is the main target of glucocorticoids in the brain. Hence, we investigated whether the hippocampal expression of the two classical corticosteroid receptors, mineralocorticoid (MR) and glucocorticoid (GR) differed in the two groups of rats. We found that LA rats displayed higher hippocampal expression of MR but not GR than HA rats. Indeed, the expression levels for these receptors were positively correlated with the amount of time spent by the animals in the open arms of the elevated plus maze. Moreover, we present evidence that the levels of anxiety quantified in the first stages of our study constitute a trait rather than a state. Taken together, this study has generated evidence of a close interaction between the anxiety trait, hippocampal MR expression and the learning abilities of individuals in stressful spatial orientation tasks.