Sex Differences and the Impact of Chronic Stress and Recovery on Instrumental Learning

Figure 3

It shows appetitive tone-signaled data for the number of days to criterion (a), efficiency ratios during acquisition (b), and the latency to barpress during acquisition (c) for control (gray), stressed (black), and recovered (checkered) animals. There was a significant sex by condition interaction on all three measures. Whereas chronic stress reduced learning and increased response speed in males, it increased learning and reduced response speed in females. Recovery from stress showed variable results across measures.

(a)

(b)

(c)