Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Effects Of Elevated Glucocorticoid Levels On Dentate Gyrus Development, Zachary Dale Vallandingham

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Exogenous glucocorticoids are commonly used in modern medications and animal studies examining the effects of glucocorticoids on the developing brain report inconsistent results. Recent reports have questioned the reliability of available drug delivery methods in mice (Herrmann et al., 2009). In our laboratory, variable behavioral results using trace eyeblink conditioning (EBC) suggest that we may be having similar problems delivering glucoroticoids to developing rat pups (Claflin et al., 2005, 2011). Subcutaneous pellets and osmotic minipumps resulted in impaired learning during trace eyeblink conditioning whereas subcutaneous injection of corticosterone (CORT) resulted in facilitation of learning on the same task. One of …