Stress helps to more clearly remember the events.
Memories associated with fear or joy, stronger and more clearly neutral. Researchers from the laboratory of cold spring Harbor in new York (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA) found that this is due to increased levels of norepinephrine in the brain.
Stress-induced increase in the concentration of norepinephrine leads to the surface nerve cells are supplied with more protein molecules, important to remember. The researchers artificially increased the levels of noradrenaline in the brain of experimental mice, they sprysnuv adrenaline, which caused the animals stress. Then they were put for 2 minutes in the unfamiliar cage. The next day the procedure was repeated, but in the cell the mouse received a mild electric shock. On the third day, once in the cage, mice have dramatically changed their behavior, they froze, afraid to move. They immediately remembered how got in the cage an electric shock, the researchers conclude.
The group of mice that did the injection on the third day special fear showed. In General, they almost didn’t remember how he received the shock. However, when they are before the experiment was put in a box, soaked in the urine of a Fox, they showed the same results as the first group. The smell of a predator caused in mice stress, which also resulted in the release of norepinephrine.
