Corticosterone infused into the dorsal striatum selectively enhances memory consolidation of cued water-maze training.

Glucocorticoid hormones enhance memory consolidation of hippocampus-dependent spatial/contextual learning, but little is known about their possible influence on the consolidation of procedural/implicit memory. Therefore, in this study we examined the effect of corticosterone (2, 5, or 10 ng) infused into the dorsal striatum of male Wistar rats immediately after training on either a cued or spatial version of the water maze. We found that corticosterone dose-dependently enhanced 48-h retention of the cued training without affecting the retention of the spatial training. These findings indicate that corticosterone acts within the dorsal striatum to enhance memory consolidation of procedural/implicit training.