To test the effect of acute stress on working memory, Yan and colleagues trained rats in a maze until they could complete it correctly 60-70 percent of the time.

When the rodents reached this level of accuracy for two consecutive days, half were put through a 20-minute forced swim, which served as acute stress, and then were put through the maze again.

Results showed that the stressed rats made significantly fewer mistakes as they went through the maze both four hours after the stressful experience and one day post-stress, compared to the non-stressed rats.

These findings appeared in the July online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.