Effect of forced swimming on the performance of the "water escape test"

Housing conditions and prior life experiences can influence, to varying degrees, animal behavior, brain regions that regulate important neural and physiological functions such as memory, stress responses, and emotional behavior. Stressors of low to moderate intensity, occurring in enriched environments and training, promote the development and maintenance of cognitive functions, whereas exposures of excessive severity and/or duration lead to maladaptation and distress, with negative effects on animal nervous system functioning in general and cognitive functions in particular. Based on these facts, external physical effects of “excessive intensity” can be used for the formation and study of various cognitive disorders. Accordingly, it was hypothesized that a similar but unavoidable exposure to the aversive conditions of the aquatic environment of the “forced swim” would affect the cognitive ability of animals in the “water escape” test. For the first time the effect of forced swimming stress (15 min) on the ability to solve the task of the “water escape” test and the development of the diving skill was evaluated. It was shown that the experience of forced swimming on the eve of the test has a “dramatic” effect on the ability to solve the task of diving, and the negative effects persist even after 2 weeks. The use of the forced swim procedure before performing the “water escape” test looks like a promising way to model stress-induced cognitive dysfunctions. The persistence of the effect of forced swimming on the “water escape” test task completion (at least 14 days) opens the prospect for evaluating the effects of subchronic administration of pharmacological agents with antidepressant and procognitive properties.