Other factors have been shown to decrease dendritic complexity in the mPFC. For example, exposing a pregnant dam to stress significantly affects the development of Layer II/III pyramidal neurons in her offspring. In particular, there are stress-related changes in complexity, in which the number of dendritic intersections and total dendritic length are reduced (Murmu et al, 2006). Chronic stress has also been shown to produce a decrease in dendritic complexity, spine density and mature spines in the mPFC of rats (Radley et al., 2008). In particular, chronic restraint stress has been shown to decrease the length and branching of apical dendrites in the prefrontal cortex (Liston et al., 2006). Accordingly, animals with a decrease in mPFC dendritic material also showed a selective impairment in extradimensional attention shifting (mPFC dependent behavior), but not discrimination or reversal learning (mPFC-independent behavior) (2006). The mPFC is a target for glucocorticoids as evidenced by the growing literature that shows the damaging effects of stress and corticosteroid treatment on the structure of the mPFC (Cook & Wellman, 2003; Brown, Henning & Wellman, 2005; Cerqueira et al.,
