A Terrified-Sound Stress Causes Cognitive Impairment in Female Mice by Impairing Neuronal Plasticity

•A pure psychological stress model has been developed by adopting a terrified-sound as the stressor.•Terrified-sound stress impairs spatial learning and memory ability, induces depression-like behavior, locomotor and exploratory alterations and affects the endocrine level of adult female mice.•Terrified-sound stress affects neuronal plasticity and leads to a reduction of dendritic spines and dendritic intersections, accompanying synaptic plastic-related proteins PSD95 and BDNF decreasing after stress.•Terrified-sound stress affects neuronal plasticity and related molecular expression in the hippocampus, which further affects the depression and cognition performance of mice.