The role of stress hormones in forced swim induced behavioral alterations during environmental changes
-
1
Institute of Experimental Medicine, Hungary
Since 1977 the forced swimming test, developed by Porsolt, has become one of the best and widely used test for antidepressant treatment, both for rats and mice. In this last three decades lot of different alteration is in use including changes in environmental parameters as well as different modifications of the procedure. The present study examined the involvement of stress hormones in the development of swimming behavior (floating, struggling) after an antidepressant treatment and among different water temperature, lighting, body weight and water depth conditions. Administration of 30mg/kg imipramine significantly reduced floating behavior and serum ACTH levels, but had no effect on serum corticosterone levels. There was a tendency for negative correlation between increased water temperatures and floating time, but no significant changes were recorded in blood parameters. During the dark cycle of the circadian rhythm rats spent more time floating than during the light cycle independently of the actual lighting conditions during the test. Neither the housing nor actual lighting conditions had significant effect on serum ACTH concentrations with higher serum corticosterone levels in animals from the dark cycle. At greater water depth rats float less but the size of animals had no effect on floating behavior in different water dept. Water depth did not influenced ACTH and corticosterone responses, but the size of rats significantly affected both parameters. This study is the first summary examining the effect of wide range of environmental alterations on behavior of the rats in the forced swim test. Despite the known connection between depression and hyperactive hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis we were unable to find a clear correlation between depressive-like behavior and serum stress hormone levels.
Conference:
IBRO International Workshop 2010, Pécs, Hungary, 21 Jan - 23 Jan, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Cognition and behavior
Citation:
Pintér
O,
Domokos
A,
Mergl
Z,
Mikics
E and
Zelena
D
(2010). The role of stress hormones in forced swim induced behavioral alterations during environmental changes.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
IBRO International Workshop 2010.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.10.00181
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
02 May 2010;
Published Online:
02 May 2010.
*
Correspondence:
Ottó Pintér, Institute of Experimental Medicine, Budapest, Hungary, potto@koki.hu