Acute Stress Induces Cognitive Improvement in the Novel Object Recognition Task by Transiently Modulating Bdnf in the Prefrontal Cortex of Male Rats

Stress response involves several mechanisms and mediators that allow individuals to adapt to a changing environment. The effects of stress may be adaptive or maladaptive, based on the timing and intensity of exposure as well as on the individual vulnerability. In particular, exposure to mild and brief stressors provides beneficial advantages in a short-term period, by activating protective functions to react with the external demands. On these bases, the purpose of our study was to establish the time-dependent effects of acute stress exposure on neuroplastic mechanisms in adult male rats. Moreover, we aim at establishing the consequences of the acute challenge on memory processes by testing rats in the Novel Object Recognition (NOR) test. We found that acute restraint stress up-regulated total Bdnf expression 1 h post stress specifically in rat prefrontal cortex, an effect that was sustained by the increase of Bdnf isoform IV as well as by the pool of Bdnf transcripts with long 3'UTR. Furthermore, in the same brain region, the acute stress modulated in a time-specific manner the expression of different activity-dependent genes, namely Arc, Gadd45β and Nr4a1. At behavioral level, the challenge was able to improve the performance in the NOR test specifically 1 h post stress, an effect that positively correlated with the expression of the neurotrophic factors. Taken together, our results suggest that a single session of acute stress enhances memory and learning functions with a specific temporal profile, by improving neuroplastic mechanisms within the prefrontal cortex.