Coping with the Forced Swim Stressor: Towards Understanding an Adaptive Mechanism

Figure 3

Corticosterone action during processing of stressful information. Increasing corticosterone concentration induced by a stressor initially activates MR modulating appraisal processes and immediate coping and then progressively activates also nuclear GR to reallocate energy to circuits underlying consolidation and retention of the experience in the memory [58]. For this purpose MR and GR mediate in complementary fashion the action of corticosterone in hippocampus and amygdala from decision-making and cognitive flexibility to executive functions in prefrontal brain regions, as is mediated by the mesolimbic dopaminergic system innervating the nucleus accumbens. Adapted from de Kloet et al. [13]. MR is mineralocorticoid receptors; GR is glucocorticoid receptors.