Estrous Cycle Impacts Fear Extinction and Relapse in Female Adolescent Rats

Bibliographic Data

ID9685974
AuthorsAugust Gable (School of Psychology UNSW Sydney Sydney New South Wales Australia), Rick Richardson (0000-0003-1833-9777, School of Psychology UNSW Sydney Sydney New South Wales Australia), Kathryn Baker (0000-0002-0766-5983, La Trobe University, corresponding author), Kathryn D Baker (School of Psychology UNSW Sydney Sydney New South Wales Australia)
Year2025
Volume67
Issue5
Pagese70084-e70084
Publication date2025-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueDevelopmental Psychobiology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0012-1630 • E-ISSN: 1098-2302
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/dev.70084
PMID40923193
OpenAlexW4414082193
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited92

Adolescent male rodents and humans exhibit impairments in extinguishing learned fear. Here, we investigated whether female adolescent rats exhibit such impairments and if extinction is affected by the estrous cycle as in adults. Following fear conditioning to a discrete cue, female adolescent Sprague Dawley rats were extinguished either around the onset of puberty, when estrous cycling begins, or across different stages of the estrous cycle. Both extinction retention and renewal (a form of relapse) were assessed. Peri‐pubertal females had comparable freezing during extinction training and tests of extinction retention and fear renewal as age‐matched males. They were noted to generally be in metestrus, a low estradiol phase, at extinction training. Postpubertal females that received extinction training in proestrus (high estradiol phase), but not metestrus (low estradiol phase), had lower freezing during extinction training and retention than males; males exhibited more freezing during a renewal test than both groups of females. Our findings suggest that female adolescent rats have reduced fear during extinction training and retention compared to males only when extinguished in a high‐estradiol phase. These findings suggest fear inhibition fluctuates across the estrous cycle in adolescence, and estradiol may protect females against impairments in fear extinction during this developmental period

Conditioning · Estrous cycle · Extinction (optical mineralogy) · Fear conditioning · Freezing behavior · Spontaneous recovery · Memory and Neural Mechanisms · Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior · Stress Responses and Cortisol