Psychoneuroendocrinology
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Psychoneuroendocrinology · Jul 2007
Comparative StudyThe temporal dynamics of intrahippocampal corticosterone in response to stress-related stimuli with different emotional and physical load: an in vivo microdialysis study in C57BL/6 and DBA/2 inbred mice.
There is strong evidence for a pivotal interaction of corticosteroid signalling and behavioral adaptation to stress. To further elucidate this relation, we monitored the dynamics of free corticosterone in the murine hippocampus of two inbred mouse strains using in vivo microdialysis. C57BL/6JOlaHsd (C57BL/6) and DBA/2OlaHsd (DBA/2) inbred mouse strains have been shown to differ in their anxiety-related and depression-like behavior and provide, thus, an interesting animal model to study the stimulus-response profile of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system as a function of emotional and physical load. ⋯ Though descriptive in nature, the present results suggest an altered corticosteroid signalling in the DBA/2 strain compared to C57BL/6 mice. Whether this observation causally underlies the differences in anxiety-related and depression-like behavior has to be further experimentally validated. In addition, our study highlights the use of in vivo microdialysis to assess the neuroendocrine endophenotype of animal models via profiling of stimulus-response patterns of stress hormones.