Lipoperoxidative activities in the cerebral cortex and medulla oblongata, related to age, sex, oxygen deficiency and short-term fasting.

In albino rats (Wistar), aged 10 and 14-days of postnatal life, experiments were performed, in which the intensity of lipoperoxidative processes in cerebral cortex and medulla oblongata in four experimental series was measured and compared: a) between females and males (control group); b) between females and males exposed to the hypobaric hypoxia (corresponding to the altitude of 7000 m and lasting 20 minutes); c) between females and males exposed to the short-term starvation (for 24 h between the day 5th and 6th of postnatal life); d) between females and males exposed to the combination of short-term starvation and hypobaric hypoxia. No sex-dependent differences in control measurements could be detected. The hypobaric hypoxia evokes significantly greater increase in lipoperoxidative processes in brain tissue of males as compared with females. The short-term starvation affected more the oxygen radicals production in the brain of females. Finally--the short-term starvation and the subsequent hypoxic stress did not evoke the sex-dependent differences in the brain of 10-day-old rats; in 14-day-old females the higher values in brain cortex, in males higher values in medulla oblongata were established. The different sensitiveness to mentioned stressors in males (more sensitive to oxygen deficiency) and in females (more sensitive to nutritional deficiency) was described.