Lin Yanhua, Westenbroek Christel, Bakker Petra, Termeer Joan, Liu Aihua, Li Xuejun, Ter Horst Gert J
Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Graduate School of Behavioral and Cognitive Neurosciences, Hanzeplein 1, P.O. Box 30.001, 9700 RB Groningen, The Netherlands.
Cereb Cortex. 2008 Dec;18(12):2762-74. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhn035. Epub 2008 Mar 20.
Women show a higher prevalence for depression than men. However, the biological basis of gender differences in stress response and recovery still remain poorly understood. Therefore, the aim of the study was to assess the gender differences in response to acute stress, chronic stress and recovery in rats. Our results showed that stress decreased male body weight but had no effect on female rats. Open field test demonstrated behavioral changes in grooming and velocity after chronic stress and recovery. Increased activity of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis was reflected by adrenal hypertrophy and increase of plasma corticosterone levels except in the socially housed female rats after stress. Gender and brain region differences in response to stress and recovery were found in the expression of cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) and phosphorylated CREB (pCREB). On the whole, expression of CREB and pCREB in male dentate gyrus (DG) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) was sensitive but in female DG and PFC it was resistant to acute and chronic stress. Interestingly, recovery restored the measured parameters to the normal level in male rats but not in female rats. In conclusion, these results suggest that male and female rats responded to stress and recovery in a different way.
女性抑郁症的患病率高于男性。然而，应激反应和恢复过程中性别差异的生物学基础仍知之甚少。因此，本研究的目的是评估大鼠在急性应激、慢性应激和恢复过程中的性别差异。我们的结果表明，应激会降低雄性大鼠的体重，但对雌性大鼠没有影响。旷场试验表明，慢性应激和恢复后，大鼠在梳理行为和运动速度方面出现了行为变化。除了应激后的群居雌性大鼠外，肾上腺肥大和血浆皮质酮水平升高反映了下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺皮质轴的活性增加。在应激和恢复过程中，发现环磷酸腺苷反应元件结合蛋白（CREB）和磷酸化CREB（pCREB）的表达存在性别和脑区差异。总体而言，雄性齿状回（DG）和前额叶皮质（PFC）中CREB和pCREB的表达敏感，但雌性DG和PFC中的表达对急性和慢性应激具有抗性。有趣的是，恢复过程使雄性大鼠的测量参数恢复到正常水平，但雌性大鼠没有。总之，这些结果表明雄性和雌性大鼠对应激和恢复的反应方式不同。
