Premium
The effects of training on corticosterone levels in swimming and diving rats
Author(s) -
McCulloch Paul,
Connolly Tiffanny
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.22.1_supplement.1223.4
Subject(s) - corticosterone , habituation , wheel running , medicine , water intake , endocrinology , zoology , biology , audiology , hormone
Although there are many rodent experimental protocols that utilize water as a stressful stimulus, our objective was to determine if gradual training could reduce or eliminate the stressful component of water exposure in rats. Our hypothesis was that trained rats will show a reduction in corticosterone concentrations during swimming and diving. Male Sprague‐Dawley rats were randomly divided into four groups: Naïve rats (N=6) remained in their cage. Handled rats (N=4) were held daily. Trained rats (N=6) had 8 weeks of daily swim and dive training. Untrained rats (N=6) received no training. After completion of swim, voluntary dive and forced dive training, all Trained and Untrained rats were placed in the water for either 3 swim or dive trials. We found that corticosterone levels in swimming and voluntarily diving rats are lower in rats that have received daily training (160 ± 38 ng/ml and 115 ± 22 ng/ml for swim and dive, respectively), as opposed to rats that have received no training (232 ± 38 ng/ml and 224 ± 20 ng/ml for swim and dive, respectively). This habituation effect occurred for voluntary diving but not for forced diving (220 ± 13 ng/ml for Trained rats and 242 ± 22 ng/ml for Untrained rats). We conclude that the stressfulness associated with voluntary, but not forced, water immersion in rats can be reduced by gradual training, and that swimming and diving can be stressful to rats not trained to perform these behaviors. Supported by NIH R15 HL080007.