Activation of brain areas in rat following warm and cold ambient exposure
Section snippets
Experimental procedures
Adult male Sprague–Dawley rats (280–320 g) were used according to the requirements of the National Institute of Mental Health Animal Committee (n=36, four of each study group: 30, 60, 120, 180 min warm exposure; 30, 60, 120, 180 min cold exposure and control). All experiments of the present study were conformed to the guidelines and ethical requirements of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees and to the guidelines of the National Institute of Mental Health Animal Care. The number of
Results
Short-term warm and cold ambient exposure of the animals elicited rapid activation of a variety of neural cells in the CNS. Fos immunoreactivity detected in brain regions of animals following warm ambient exposure was compared to cold-stressed as well as to control animals. Several regions, like the shell portion of the accumbens nucleus, septohypothalamic nucleus, the rostral part of the medial preoptic area, the supraoptic nucleus, the lateral retrochiasmatic area, the supramamillary nucleus,
Discussion
Thermal exposure is known to elicit a variety of physiological responses (Satinoff, 1978). The neuroanatomical representation of the physiological (autonomic, endocrine, behavioral) reactions can be followed up by histochemical techniques. The c-fos proto-oncogene was found to be expressed following neuronal activity (Morgan and Curran, 1991); therefore, the distribution of Fos-positive neurons reflects the activated brain areas in response to stress.
Warm environmental exposure resulted in
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Mrs. Judit Helfferich and Dr. Éva Mezey for their help in immunohistochemical techniques and Mr. Ricardo Dreyfuss for the exceptional photography. This work was supported by grant from the Hungarian National Science Foundation, OTKA TS040771.
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