Effect of prefrontal infralimbic cortex GABA_A receptor agitating on passive avoidance memory consolidation of rats

In this study, one-trial step-through task was applied to reveal the effect of prefrontal infralimbic cortex GABA_A receptor agitating on passive avoidance memory consolidation in rats. Immediately after training (with shock), GABA_A receptor agonist, muscimol (0.5 μg/0.25 μL) or saline (0.25 μL) was infused into the test animal's infralimbic cortex, then, the latencies of rats stepping through the dark room were recorded. Meanwhile, local EEG power was adopted as index of the inactivation effect of muscimol. The step-through latencies of muscimol group were comparable(P>0.05)with saline group, but their local EEG power had decreased significantly (P<0.05). These results suggest that the inactivation of infralimbic cortex would not demolish the passive avoidance memory consolidation of rats.