A neuroendocrinological study for rats exposed to emotional stress as a model of anorexia nervosa.

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The chronic exposure to emotional stress using by a communications box system (1.5mA/sec, 2times/min, 1hr/time, 2times/day for 7day) significantly reduced total amount of food intake as well as body weight gain in Wister strain's rats. That stress also decreased blood sugar and increased plasma levels of ACTH and corticosterone. Rats chronically exposed to emotional stress showed increased locomotor activity in a familiar environment and decreased exploratory behaivior in a novel environment. The content of immunoreactive corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) significantly increased in hypothalamus in rats chronically exposed to emothinal stress. It was observed by in situ hybridization that the emotinal stress for 5days induced CRF m RNA expression only in parvocellulr neurons of paraventricular nucleus in rats. The exposure to emotional stress increased noradrenaline release of paraventricular nucleus examined by intracerebral microdialysis. The increase of noradrenaline induced by emotional stress for 5min on the first day of the experiment did not change when the same stress was repeated on the 7th day, which indicated that desensitization of noradrenaline neurons dose not occur. These changes induced by chronic exposure to emotional stress were smaller than those by electric footshock.The emotional stress used in our study induced the similar findings in rats to those in patients with anorexia nervosa except for hypogonadism, which was accompanied by activation of CRF and noradrenaline releases in paraventricular nucleus.