Blocking mTOR activity with rapamycin prevents long-lasting stress-related over-arousal

Rapamycin, an mTOR inhibitor, attenuates predator stress-induced hyperarousal for at least three weeks.

• Predator stress in rats leads to long-lasting non-associative fear memories and increased anxiety-like behavior.
• Rapamycin treatment reduces hyperarousal and blocks certain anxiety-like behaviors as measured in specific tests.
• Rats treated with rapamycin show increased activity when re-exposed to the predator stress context, indicating a reduction in associative fear memory.
• Findings suggest that mTOR plays a critical role in the formation of both context-dependent and context-independent fear memories.
• mTOR activation may be linked to the development of acquired anxiety disorders such as PTSD.

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