Early β adrenoceptor dependent time window for fear memory persistence in APPswe/PS1dE9 mice

In this study we demonstrate that 2 month old APPswe/PS1dE9 mice, a transgenic model of Alzheimer’s disease, exhibited intact short-term memory in Pavlovian hippocampal—dependent contextual fear learning task. However, their long-term memory was impaired. Intra-CA1 infusion of isoproterenol hydrochloride, the β-adrenoceptor agonist, to the ventral hippocampus of APPswe/PS1dE9 mice immediately before fear conditioning restored long-term contextual fear memory. Infusion of the β-adrenoceptor agonist + 2.5 h after fear conditioning only partially rescued the fear memory, whereas infusion at + 12 h post conditioning did not interfere with long-term memory persistence in this mouse model. Furthermore, Intra-CA1 infusion of propranolol, the β-adrenoceptor antagonist, administered immediately before conditioning to their wildtype counterpart impaired long-term fear memory, while it was ineffective when administered + 4 h and + 12 h post conditioning. Our results indicate that, long-term fear memory persistence is determined by a unique β-adrenoceptor sensitive time window between 0 and + 2.5 h upon learning acquisition, in the ventral hippocampal CA1 of APPswe/PS1dE9 mice. On the contrary, β-adrenoceptor agonist delivery to ventral hippocampal CA1 per se did not enhance innate anxiety behaviour in open field test. Thus we conclude that, activation of learning dependent early β-adrenoceptor modulation underlies and is necessary to promote long-term fear memory persistence in APPswe/PS1dE9.