Figure 5. Neither stress, nor SCFA treatment affected the acquisition, retention and extinction phase data from the fear conditioning test.

Cue‐ and context‐associative learning induced by foot shock was evaluated using fear conditioning 4 weeks post stress. At phase 1 (acquisition), mice were presented with a tone, followed by a foot chock. The context‐associative learning was assessed by measuring freezing behaviour in between tones (A), whereas cue‐associative learning was determined during the presentation of the tone (D). At phase 2 (retention), mice underwent the same protocol without the shocks to assess context‐ and cue‐associative retention (B and E, respectively). At phase 3 (extinction), mice were assessed for context‐ and cue‐associative extinction (C and F, respectively). All data are expressed as means ± SEM (n = 9–10). Open circles on each graph represent individual animals. [Color figure can be viewed at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com]