Hypoxic Postconditioning Corrects Behavioral Impairments in Rats in a Model of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Abstract

The protective effects of a new method of hypoxic postconditioning using hypobaric hypoxia in a stressrestress model of post-traumatic stress disorder were studied in rats. Presentation of three sessions of moderate hypobaric hypoxia to rats surviving severe pathogenic traumatic stress (the postconditioning regime) was found to counter the formation of a poststress anxiety state. The anxiolytic effect of postconditioning was apparent on presentation of moderate hypoxia both after traumatic stress and after restress, though the extent of the effect differed depending on the time point of the development of experimental post-traumatic stress pathology at which postconditioning was performed. The results obtained here provide evidence that the proposed postconditioning regime using moderate hypobaric hypoxia has marked anxiolytic and stress-protective actions.