Effects of l-arginine and creatine administration on spatial memory in rats subjected to a chronic variable stress model

Figures & data

Table 1. Effects of chronic variable stress and treatments on blood biochemical parameters.

	Groups
Parameters	Ct	Cs	Cs/La	Cs/Cr	Cs/La + Cr
Corticosterone (μg/dL)	0.91 ± 0.2	1.35 ± 0.3	0.95 ± 0.2	0.65 ± 0.1*	0.67 ± 0.1*
Glucose (mg/dL)	81.1 ± 6.7	85.1 ± 4.2	92.3 ± 3.3	94.4 ± 3.4	88.4 ± 4.1

Data are expressed as mean ± S.E.M.

*Significant differences when compared to the Cs group (One-way ANOVA with the post-hoc Newman–Keuls test, p < 0.05), n = 7–6 animals/group.

Table 2. Effects of chronic variable stress and treatments on morphological parameters.

	Groups
Parameters	Ct	Cs	Cs/La	Cs/Cr	Cs/La + Cr
Final body weight (g)	435.3 ± 5.8	425.3 ± 7.8	418.6 ± 11	431 ± 11	438.7 ± 12
Left adrenal weight (mg/g)	0.09 ± 0.0	0.11 ± 0.0†	0.10 ± 0.0	0.08 ± 0.0	0.07 ± 0.0
Heart weight (mg)	1530 ± 95	1446 ± 48	1903 ± 110*	1653 ± 97	1727 ± 123
Heart weight (mg)/body weight (g)	3.52 ± 0.2	3.40 ± 0.1	4.53 ± 0.3*	3.82 ± 0.2	3.94 ± 0.3

Data are expressed as mean ± S.E.M.

†Significantly different from the Cs/Cr and Cs/La + Cr groups.

*Significantly different from the Ct and Cs groups. (One-way ANOVA with the post-hoc Newman–Keuls test, p < 0.05), n = 7–6 animals/group.

Figure 1. Effects of chronic variable stress and treatments on spatial reference memory acquisition. Data are expressed as mean ± S.E.M. These values represent the median latency (s) in finding the platform from four trials during five days of training. No significant differences were observed between groups (One-way ANOVA with the post-hoc Newman–Keuls test, p > 0.05), n = 7–6 animals/group.

Figure 2. Effects of chronic variable stress and treatments on reference memory retention: (A) latency in finding the platform and (B) mean % time spent in the target quadrant (T.Q.). Data are expressed as mean ± S.E.M. *Significantly different from Ct, Cs, and Cs/La groups (One-way ANOVA with the post-hoc Newman–Keuls test, p < 0.05), n = 7–6 animals/group.

Figure 3. Effects of chronic variable stress and treatments on spatial working memory. Data are expressed as mean ± S.E.M. These values represent mean latencies in finding the platform in each trial during four testing days. Statistical difference between the Cs/Cr group and other groups in the second (*p < 0.05) and third trials (**p < 0.001) (repeated-measures ANOVA with the post-hoc Newman–Keuls test), n = 7–6 animals/group.