Zheng Yiwen, Goddard Matthew, Darlington Cynthia L, Smith Paul F
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, School of Medical Sciences, University of Otago Medical School, Dunedin, New Zealand.
Behav Brain Res. 2008 Nov 3;193(1):55-62. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2008.04.018. Epub 2008 May 3.
Despite frequent reports that patients with vestibular dysfunction exhibit an unusually high incidence of anxiety disorders, few studies have investigated the emotional effects of vestibular damage in animals. In this study we investigated the effects of a permanent surgical bilateral vestibular deafferentation (BVD) on the performance of rats in a series of anxiety tests at 3 weeks (3-W), 3 months (3-M) and 5 months (5-M) following the lesion. We used the elevated plus maze (EPM), elevated T maze (ETM), hyponeophagia and social interaction tests. Contrary to expectation, we found that, at 3 and 5M post-op, BVD rats spent more rather than less time on the open arms of the EPM compared to sham controls, and they displayed a lack of learned inhibitory avoidance in the ETM. Compared to sham controls, BVD rats showed no significant difference over the 3 time points in their latencies to eat in a novel situation; however, they did engage in social interaction to a significantly lesser extent. Finally, blood corticosterone levels were not significantly different between BVD and sham rats at 6 months post-op. These results suggest that BVD causes changes in the performance of rats in the EPM and ETM that might reflect emotional changes, or could be due to the cognitive impairment and hyperactivity caused by BVD.
尽管经常有报道称前庭功能障碍患者焦虑症的发病率异常高，但很少有研究调查前庭损伤对动物的情绪影响。在本研究中，我们调查了永久性双侧手术前庭去传入（BVD）对大鼠在损伤后3周（3-W）、3个月（3-M）和5个月（5-M）一系列焦虑测试中的表现的影响。我们使用了高架十字迷宫（EPM）、高架T迷宫（ETM）、低食欲和社交互动测试。与预期相反，我们发现，在术后3个月和5个月时，与假手术对照组相比，BVD大鼠在EPM开放臂上花费的时间更多而非更少，并且它们在ETM中表现出缺乏习得性抑制回避。与假手术对照组相比，BVD大鼠在新环境中进食潜伏期的3个时间点上没有显著差异；然而，它们的社交互动程度明显较低。最后，术后6个月时，BVD大鼠和假手术大鼠的血皮质酮水平没有显著差异。这些结果表明，BVD会导致大鼠在EPM和ETM中的表现发生变化，这可能反映了情绪变化，也可能是由于BVD引起的认知障碍和多动。
