Central command-induced changes in regional cerebral blood flow during voluntary exercise and sleep in rats.

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CENTRAL COMMAND signals from the higher brain have been thought to converge with afferent signals arising from the working skeletal muscle to cause an overall cardiovascular response in proportion to the intensity of physical activity or perceived effort. It has been pointed out that central command and muscle afferent input, can act independently to elicit cardiovascular responses. However, role of central command during exercise has not been completely understood yet.It would be worth to try to measure the higher brain nerve activity directly to elucidate the role of central command in animal. In the present study, we tried to measure the central command-induced changes in regional cerebral blood flow in the hippocampal CA1 area (CBFhippo), during grooming, moving, non-rapid eye movement sleep and rapid eye movement sleep.We demonstrated clearly that rCBF of the hippocampus CA1 region increased significantly during REM sleep and moving. Since it has been suggested that memory consolidation occur during REM sleep, the increase in CBFhippo observed during REM sleep may possibly represent the time course of the central command that occurred when rats were awake.We also try to directly measure hippocampal CA1 neuron activity in freely moving rats using micro-wire array in rats. We have succeeded in measuring CA1 neuron activity during quiet awake but not during moving and grooming because of contamination of external noise. It would be necessary to improve the detail method of micro-wire array and experimental procedures.