scholarly journals Anxiety and neurometabolite levels in the hippocampus and amygdala after prolonged exposure to predator-scent stress

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 582-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. B. Shevelev ◽  
V. E. Tseilikman ◽  
N. V. Khotskin ◽  
А. S. Khotskina ◽  
G. V. Kontsevaya ◽  
...  

Here, to study the relationship between anxiety levels with changes in the neurometabolic profile in the hippocampus and amygdala, an experimental predator stress model was reproduced in which Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to cat urine for 10 minutes on a daily basis for 10 days. At the time of presentation of the stimulus, an online survey of behavioral reactions was conducted. Fear, aggressiveness, avoidance of stimulus and grooming were recorded. Fourteen days after the completion of the last stress exposure, the total level of anxiety was determined in the test of the“cross maze”. Using the method of in vivo NMR spectroscopy, the content of neurometabolites was determined in the hippocampus and in the amygdala. According to the peculiarities of behavioral reactions to a stressor, animals were retrospectively divided into two phenotypes. The first phenotype used a passive behavioral strategy, and the second phenotype was active. In animals of the first phenotype, the indicators of anxiety behavior remained at the control level. In animals of the second phenotype, a decrease in anxiety was observed. Animals of the second phenotype showed elevated levels of lactate in the hippocampus compared to animals of the first phenotype, and the lowest N-acetylaspartate levels significantly differed from those in the control and the first phenotype animals. In the amygdala, in animals of the second phenotype, the content of taurine is sharply reduced in comparison with those in the control and the animals of the first phenotype. Thus, the results obtained indicate a relationship of post-stress changes in anxiety, with the peculiarities of the behavioral reactions presented at the moment of the immediate action of the stressor. Among the hippocampal and amygdala neurometabolites, the most informative for the characterization of the anxiolytic action of the predator stress are identified.

1996 ◽  
Vol 149 (2) ◽  
pp. 319-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
M Cimmino ◽  
F Mion ◽  
F Goglia ◽  
Y Minaire ◽  
A Géloën

Abstract The objective of the present study was to test in vivo the metabolic effects of 3,5-di-iodothyronine (3,5-T2) in unanesthetized and unrestrained male Sprague–Dawley rats. Amino acid and lipid metabolisms were investigated by breath tests using as tracers the 13C-carboxyl-labeled molecules of leucine, α-ketoisocaproic acid (KIC) and octanoic acid, in four different groups of rats: hypothyroid animals (receiving propylthiouracil (PTU) and iopanoic acid), hypothyroid animals treated with either a daily i.p. injection of 3,5-T2 (25 μg/100 g body weight), or triiodothyronine (T3) (1 μg/100 g body weight), and control euthyroid animals receiving equivalent volumes of the vehicle solutions. Energy expenditure was measured by continuous monitoring of O2 consumption and CO2 production in these different groups. Daily energy expenditure was decreased by 30% in PTU-treated rats. The chronic treatments with 3,5-T2 and T3 restored daily energy expenditure to the control level. 13CO2 recovered in breath following the i.v. injection of octanoic acid-[1-13C] was decreased in hypothyroid animals compared with control animals (P<0·05) and restored to control values by T3 and 3,5-T2 treatments. The 13CO2 recovered in breath after i.v. injection of leucine-[1-13C]was increased in PTU-treated compared with control animals (P<0·05). Chronic treatment with either 3,5-T2 or T3 restored 13CO2 to control values. Excretion of 13CO2 recovered in breath following the i.v. injection of KIC-[1-13C] was increased in PTU-treated compared with control animals. Chronic treatments with either 3,5-T2 or T3 did not restore KIC decarboxylation. These results suggest that 3,5-T2 exerts metabolic effects on energy expendi ture, on both lipid β-oxidation and leucine metabolism in hypothyroid rats. We conclude that 3,5-T2 is a metabolically active iodothyronine. Journal of Endocrinology (1996) 149, 319–325


2009 ◽  
Vol 53 (7) ◽  
pp. 2748-2751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana C. Venhoff ◽  
Dirk Lebrecht ◽  
Frank U. Reuss ◽  
Brigitte Heckl-Östreicher ◽  
Roland Wehr ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Fosalvudine tidoxil is a prodrug derived from the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor 3-deoxy-3-fluorothymidine (FLT; alovudine). FLT effectively inhibits resistant human immunodeficiency virus type 1, but its clinical development was stopped due to bone marrow and liver toxicity. In this study, we examined the long-term in vivo effects of fosalvudine tidoxil on the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) contents in rats. Sprague-Dawley rats received fosalvudine tidoxil (15, 40, or 100 mg/kg of body weight/day) by oral gavage during a period of 8 weeks. Didanosine (100 mg/kg/day) was used as a positive control for mitochondrial toxicity. mtDNA levels in liver, gastrocnemius muscle, sciatic nerve, and inguinal fat pad tissues were quantified by real-time PCR. In hepatic mitochondria, fosalvudine tidoxil induced significant mtDNA depletion. At doses of 15, 40, and 100 mg/kg, the mean hepatic mtDNA values were 62, 64, and 47% of control values, respectively. Rats exposed to 100 mg/kg of fosalvudine tidoxil, unlike all other groups, had slightly elevated levels of glutamate pyruvate transaminase in sera. Didanosine induced a loss of mtDNA (to 48% of the control level) similar to that induced by fosalvudine tidoxil. mtDNA levels in skeletal, neural, and adipose tissues in the negative control and treatment groups were similar. Our results suggest that fosalvudine tidoxil induces mitochondrial hepatotoxicity and that this effect warrants scrutiny in clinical trials.


Author(s):  
J.S. Geoffroy ◽  
R.P. Becker

The pattern of BSA-Au uptake in vivo by endothelial cells of the venous sinuses (sinusoidal cells) of rat bone marrow has been described previously. BSA-Au conjugates are taken up exclusively in coated pits and vesicles, enter and pass through an “endosomal” compartment comprised of smooth-membraned tubules and vacuoles and cup-like bodies, and subsequently reside in multivesicular and dense bodies. The process is very rapid, with BSA-Au reaching secondary lysosmes one minute after presentation. (Figure 1)In further investigations of this process an isolated limb perfusion method using an artificial blood substitute, Oxypherol-ET (O-ET; Alpha Therapeutics, Los Angeles, CA) was developed. Under nembutal anesthesia, male Sprague-Dawley rats were laparotomized. The left common iliac artery and vein were ligated and the right iliac artery was cannulated via the aorta with a small vein catheter. Pump tubing, preprimed with oxygenated 0-ET at 37°C, was connected to the cannula.


Author(s):  
N.K.R. Smith ◽  
K.E. Hunter ◽  
P. Mobley ◽  
L.P. Felpel

Electron probe energy dispersive x-ray microanalysis (XRMA) offers a powerful tool for the determination of intracellular elemental content of biological tissue. However, preparation of the tissue specimen , particularly excitable central nervous system (CNS) tissue , for XRMA is rather difficult, as dissection of a sample from the intact organism frequently results in artefacts in elemental distribution. To circumvent the problems inherent in the in vivo preparation, we turned to an in vitro preparation of astrocytes grown in tissue culture. However, preparations of in vitro samples offer a new and unique set of problems. Generally, cultured cells, growing in monolayer, must be harvested by either mechanical or enzymatic procedures, resulting in variable degrees of damage to the cells and compromised intracel1ular elemental distribution. The ultimate objective is to process and analyze unperturbed cells. With the objective of sparing others from some of the same efforts, we are reporting the considerable difficulties we have encountered in attempting to prepare astrocytes for XRMA.Tissue cultures of astrocytes from newborn C57 mice or Sprague Dawley rats were prepared and cultured by standard techniques, usually in T25 flasks, except as noted differently on Cytodex beads or on gelatin. After different preparative procedures, all samples were frozen on brass pins in liquid propane, stored in liquid nitrogen, cryosectioned (0.1 μm), freeze dried, and microanalyzed as previously reported.


Author(s):  
Arthur J. Wasserman ◽  
Azam Rizvi ◽  
George Zazanis ◽  
Frederick H. Silver

In cases of peripheral nerve damage the gap between proximal and distal stumps can be closed by suturing the ends together, using a nerve graft, or by nerve tubulization. Suturing allows regeneration but does not prevent formation of painful neuromas which adhere to adjacent tissues. Autografts are not reported to be as good as tubulization and require a second surgical site with additional risks and complications. Tubulization involves implanting a nerve guide tube that will provide a stable environment for axon proliferation while simultaneously preventing formation of fibrous scar tissue. Supplementing tubes with a collagen gel or collagen plus extracellular matrix factors is reported to increase axon proliferation when compared to controls. But there is no information regarding the use of collagen fibers to guide nerve cell migration through a tube. This communication reports ultrastructural observations on rat sciatic nerve regeneration through a silicone nerve stent containing crosslinked collagen fibers.Collagen fibers were prepared as described previously. The fibers were threaded through a silicone tube to form a central plug. One cm segments of sciatic nerve were excised from Sprague Dawley rats. A control group of rats received a silicone tube implant without collagen while an experimental group received the silicone tube containing a collagen fiber plug. At 4 and 6 weeks postoperatively, the implants were removed and fixed in 2.5% glutaraldehyde buffered by 0.1 M cacodylate containing 1.5 mM CaCl2 and balanced by 0.1 M sucrose. The explants were post-fixed in 1% OSO4, block stained in 1% uranyl acetate, dehydrated and embedded in Epon. Axons were counted on montages prepared at a total magnification of 1700x. Montages were viewed through a dissecting microscope. Thin sections were sampled from the proximal, middle and distal regions of regenerating sciatic plugs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66
Author(s):  
Zsuzsanna Gödör ◽  
Georgina Szabó

Abstract As they say, money can’t buy happiness. However, the lack of it can make people’s lives much harder. From the moment we open our first bank account, we have to make lots of financial decisions in our life. Should I save some money or should I spend it? Is it a good idea to ask for a loan? How to invest my money? When we make such decisions, unfortunately we sometimes make mistakes, too. In this study, we selected seven common decision making biases - anchoring and adjustment, overconfidence, high optimism, the law of small numbers, framing effect, disposition effect and gambler’s fallacy – and tested them on the Hungarian population via an online survey. In the focus of our study was the question whether the presence of economic knowledge helps people make better decisions? The decision making biases found in literature mostly appeared in the sample as well. It proves that people do apply them when making decisions and in certain cases this could result in serious and costly errors. That’s why it would be absolutely important for people to learn about them, thus increasing their awareness and attention when making decisions. Furthermore, in our research we did find some connection between decisions and the knowledge of economics, people with some knowledge of economics opted for the better solution in bigger proportion


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Laura Newton Miller

A Review of: Jamali, H. R., & Asadi, S. (2010). Google and the scholar: The role of Google in scientists' information seeking behaviour. Online Information Review, 34(2), 282-294. Objective – To determine how Google’s general search engine impacts the information-seeking behaviour of physicists and astronomers. Design – Using purposive stratified non-random sampling, a mixed-methods study was conducted which included one-on-one interviews, information-event cards, and an online questionnaire survey. Setting – Department of Physics and Astronomy at University College London. Subjects – The researchers interviewed 26 PhD students and 30 faculty members (23% of the department’s 242 faculty and students), and 24 of those participants completed information-event cards. A total of 114 respondents (47.1% of the department members) participated in the online survey. Methods – The researchers conducted 56 interviews which lasted an average of 44 minutes each. These were digitally recorded, fully transcribed, and coded. The researchers asked questions related to information-seeking behaviour and scholarly communication. Four information-event cards were given to volunteer interviewees to gather critical incident information on their first four information-seeking actions after the interview. These were to be completed preferably within the first week of receiving the cards, with 82 cards completed by 24 participants. Once initial analysis of the interviews was completed, the researchers sent an online survey to the members of the same department. Main Results – This particular paper examined only the results related to the scholars’ information-seeking behaviour in terms of search engines and web searching. Details of further results are examined in Jamali (2008) and Jamali and Nicholas (2008). The authors reported that 18% of the respondents used Google on a daily basis to identify articles. They also found that 11% searched subject databases, and 9% searched e-journal websites on a daily basis. When responses on daily searching were combined with those from participants who searched two to three times per week, the most popular method for finding research was by tracking references at the end of an article (61%). This was followed by Google (58%) and ToC email alerts (35%). Responses showed that 46% never used Google Scholar to discover research articles. When asked if they intentionally searched Google to find articles, all except two participants answered that they do not, instead using specific databases to find research. The researchers noted that finding articles in Google was not the original intention of participants’ searches, but more of a by-product of Google searching. In the information-event card study, two categories emerged based on the kinds of information required. This included participants looking for general information on a specific topic (64%, with 22 cases finding this information successfully), and participants knowing exactly what piece of information they were seeking (36%, with 28 cases finding information successfully). There was no occurrence of using Google specifically to conduct a literature search or to search for a paper during this information-event card study, although the researchers say that Google is progressively showing more scholarly information within its search results. (This cannot be ascertained from these specific results except for one response from an interviewee.) The researchers found that 29.4% of respondents used Google to find specific pieces of information, although it was not necessarily scholarly. Conclusion – Physics and astronomy researchers do not intentionally use Google’s general search engine to search for articles, but, Google seems to be a good starting point for problem-specific information queries.


Diagnostics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Do-Wan Lee ◽  
Jae-Im Kwon ◽  
Chul-Woong Woo ◽  
Hwon Heo ◽  
Kyung Won Kim ◽  
...  

This study quantitatively measured the changes in metabolites in the hippocampal lesions of a rat model of cuprizone-induced demyelination as detected using in vivo 7 T proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Nineteen Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into two groups and fed a normal chow diet or cuprizone (0.2%, w/w) for 7 weeks. Demyelinated hippocampal lesions were quantitatively measured using a 7 T magnetic resonance imaging scanner. All proton spectra were quantified for metabolite concentrations and relative ratios. Compared to those in the controls, the cuprizone-induced rats had significantly higher concentrations of glutamate (p = 0.001), gamma-aminobutyric acid (p = 0.019), and glutamate + glutamine (p = 0.001); however, creatine + phosphocreatine (p = 0.006) and myo-inositol (p = 0.001) concentrations were lower. In addition, we found that the glutamine and glutamate complex/total creatine (p < 0.001), glutamate/total creatine (p < 0.001), and GABA/total creatine (p = 0.002) ratios were significantly higher in cuprizone-treated rats than in control rats. Our results showed that cuprizone-induced neuronal demyelination may influence the severe abnormal metabolism in hippocampal lesions, and these responses could be caused by microglial activation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and astrocytic necrosis.


Vascular ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 170853812199985
Author(s):  
Yuanyuan Guo ◽  
Fan Zhu ◽  
Xiong Zhang ◽  
Guangmin Wu ◽  
Pinting Fu ◽  
...  

Objectives Vein graft adaptation (VGA) is a process that vein as a vascular graft conduits in arterial reconstructive surgery; VGA can lead to postoperative vein graft stenosis (VGS) and complications after coronary artery bypass graft and other peripheral artery bypass surgeries. VGA is characterized by vein graft loss the venous features without exhibiting arterial features; furthermore, the activation of ERK inhibited the maintenance of venous properties of the vein graft. We hypothesized that ERK inhibition can affect vein VGS through regulating the expression of EphB4. Methods Rat vein transplantation model was established using wild-type and EphB4+/− Sprague-Dawley rats. Hematoxylin-eosin, Masson, Verhoeff, actin staining, and immunohistochemistry were applied to observe the structure of the vein grafts. Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) were isolated from the vein and vein grafts. Western blotting was used to determine the expression of p-ERK1/2 and EphB4, and immunofluorescence was applied to detect the expression and location of EphB4. Cell wound scratch assay and CCK8 assay were used to determine the migration and proliferation of VSMCs. Real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to determine the mRNA expression of EphB4. Results Western blotting in vein sample and vein graft sample detected p-ERK1/2 and ERK1/2 expression in both EphB4+/+ and EphB4+/− rats. The expression of p-ERK was increased in vein graft compared to vein. Immunofluorescence in VSMCs form EphB4+/+ and EphB4+/− rats detected EphB4 expression in both cells, and the expression of EphB4 was increased in VSMCs form EphB4+/+ rats. SCH772984 reduces the proliferation and migration of VSMCs. Inhibition of ERK suppressed the increase of vein graft wall thickness, and the expression of collagen fibers, elastic fibers, and α-actin was decreased. Vein graft from EphB4+/− rats reduces the expression of EphB4, and SCH772984 suppressed the decrease of EphB4 in vivo. Vein graft from EphB4+/− rats increased the expression of EphB4, and SCH772984 suppressed the increase of EphB4 in vivo. Conclusions The inhibition of ERK1/2 suppressed the process of VGS by decreasing the proliferation of VSMCs. The ERK-inhibitor SCH772984 suppressed the level of VGS by extending the time of EphB4 expression during the process of VGA, thus maintaining the venousization of vein graft. The mechanism may be that the inhibitor SCH772984 suppresses the level of VGS by extending the time of EphB4 expression during the process of VGA. Therefore, our research provides a new target of VGS treatment by inhibiting the expression of ERK1/2 through the process of VGA.


2021 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 096368972110354
Author(s):  
Eun-Jung Yoon ◽  
Hye Rim Seong ◽  
Jangbeen Kyung ◽  
Dajeong Kim ◽  
Sangryong Park ◽  
...  

Stamina-enhancing effects of human adipose derived stem cells (hADSCs) were investigated in young Sprague-Dawley rats. Ten-day-old male rats were transplanted intravenously (IV) or intracerebroventricularly (ICV) with hADSCs (1 × 106 cells/rat), and physical activity was measured by locomotor activity and rota-rod performance at post-natal day (PND) 14, 20, 30, and 40, as well as a forced swimming test at PND 41. hADSCs injection increased the moving time in locomotor activity, the latency in rota-rod performance, and the maximum swimming time. For the improvement of physical activity, ICV transplantation was superior to IV injection. In biochemical analyses, ICV transplantation of hADSCs markedly reduced serum creatine phosphokinase, lactate dehydrogenase, alanine transaminase, and muscular lipid peroxidation, the markers for muscular and hepatic injuries, despite the reduction in muscular glycogen and serum triglycerides as energy sources. Notably, hADSCs secreted brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and nerve growth factor in vitro, and increased the level of BDNF in the brain and muscles in vivo. The results indicate that hADSCs enhance physical activity including stamina not only by attenuating tissue injury, but also by strengthening the muscles via production of BDNF.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document