Cordeira Joshua, Kolluru Sai Saroja, Rosenblatt Heather, Kry Jenny, Strecker Robert E, McCarley Robert W
Department of Biological & EnvironmentalSciences, Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT, USA.
Department of Biological & EnvironmentalSciences, Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT, USA.
Behav Brain Res. 2018 Feb 26;339:124-129. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2017.11.033. Epub 2017 Nov 24.
Females are an under-represented research model and the mechanisms through which sleep loss impairs cognition are not clear. Since levels of reproductive hormones and the estrous cycle are sensitive to sleep loss and necessary for learning and memory, we hypothesized that sleep deprivation impacts learning and memory in female mice by interfering with the estrous cycle. We used the object recognition task to assess learning and memory in female mice during separate phases of the estrous cycle and after sleep loss. Mice in metestrus/diestrus attended to sample objects less than mice in proestrus/estrus during object acquisition, the first phase of the object recognition task. Subsequently, during the recognition phase of the task, only mice in proestrus/estrus displayed a preference for the novel object. Sleep deprivation for 12h immediately before the object recognition task reduced time attending to sample objects and novel object preference for mice in proestrus/estrus, without changing length of the estrous cycle. These results show that sleep deprived mice in proestrus/estrus had learning deficits and memory impairments, like mice in metestrus/diestrus. Since sleep deprivation did not disrupt the estrous cycle, however, results did not support the hypothesis. Cognitive impairments due to acute sleep loss were not due to alterations to the estrous cycle.
雌性是一种代表性不足的研究模型，睡眠缺失损害认知的机制尚不清楚。由于生殖激素水平和发情周期对睡眠缺失敏感，且对学习和记忆至关重要，我们推测睡眠剥夺通过干扰发情周期影响雌性小鼠的学习和记忆。我们使用物体识别任务来评估雌性小鼠在发情周期的不同阶段以及睡眠缺失后的学习和记忆。在物体识别任务的第一阶段即物体获取阶段，处于动情后期/间情期的小鼠对样本物体的关注少于处于动情前期/发情期的小鼠。随后，在任务的识别阶段，只有处于动情前期/发情期的小鼠对新物体表现出偏好。在物体识别任务前立即进行12小时的睡眠剥夺，减少了处于动情前期/发情期小鼠对样本物体的关注时间和对新物体的偏好，且未改变发情周期的长度。这些结果表明，处于动情前期/发情期的睡眠剥夺小鼠存在学习缺陷和记忆障碍，与处于动情后期/间情期的小鼠一样。然而，由于睡眠剥夺并未扰乱发情周期，结果不支持该假设。急性睡眠缺失导致的认知障碍并非由于发情周期的改变。
