"It would be interesting to know whether Prozac affects learning in males after they have experienced a stressful event," she added.

Shors hopes to do more research to find out just how Prozac works in the brain. In other research, her team found that stressful experience alters the anatomy of neurons in the hippocampus, a brain region necessary for memory formation. Specifically, they found that exposure to stressful experience increases the presence of neuronal connections in the male hippocampus but reduces their presence in the female hippocampus. "We plan to investigate whether long-term treatment with Prozac also protects the female brain from other adverse effects of stressful experience, " Shors said.

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Contact: Miguel Tersy
mtersy@ur.rutgers.edu
732-932-7084 x616
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
28-Oct-2002