Yamauchi Tsugumi, Takahashi Kou, Yoshioka Toshinori, Yamada Daisuke, Nakano Yoshio, Kasai Satoka, Iriyama Satoshi, Yoshizawa Kazumi, Nishino Shoichi, Miyazaki Satoru, Saitoh Akiyoshi
Laboratory of Pharmacology, Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokyo University of Science, Chiba, Japan.
Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Kochi Medical School, Kochi University, Kochi, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jan 25;15(1):3199. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-87036-1.
Recently, exposure to sounds with ultrasound (US) components has been shown to modulate brain activity. However, the effects of US on emotional states remain poorly understood. We previously demonstrated that the olfactory bulbectomized (OBX) rat depression model is suitable for examining the effects of audible sounds on emotionality. Here, we investigated the impact of US exposure on the emotional state of OBX rats. In naive rats, exposure to 100 kHz US for 1 h did not increase the number of c-Fos-positive cells in auditory-related cortical areas, and US, as a tone cue, did not elicit a conditioned fear response in the auditory fear conditioning test. These results indicate that the frequency of 100 kHz is hard to hear for rats. However, US improved hyperemotionality (HE) scores and decreased plasma corticosterone levels in OBX rats, suggesting ameliorative effects on depression-like symptoms and stress. In contrast to HE scores, US exposure did not influence anxiety-like behaviors in the elevated plus maze. In conclusion, we demonstrated that exposure to airborne US can alleviate depressive-like symptoms in the OBX rat depression model. This is the first study to show that exposure to airborne US alone produces changes in emotional states in an animal model.
最近，已证明暴露于含有超声波（US）成分的声音中会调节大脑活动。然而，超声波对情绪状态的影响仍知之甚少。我们之前证明，嗅球切除（OBX）大鼠抑郁模型适用于研究可听声音对情绪的影响。在此，我们研究了暴露于超声波对OBX大鼠情绪状态的影响。在未处理的大鼠中，暴露于100kHz超声波1小时并未增加听觉相关皮质区域中c-Fos阳性细胞的数量，并且在听觉恐惧条件反射测试中，超声波作为音调线索并未引发条件性恐惧反应。这些结果表明，100kHz的频率对大鼠来说很难听到。然而，超声波改善了OBX大鼠的过度情绪反应（HE）评分并降低了血浆皮质酮水平，表明对抑郁样症状和应激有改善作用。与HE评分相反，暴露于超声波并未影响高架十字迷宫中的焦虑样行为。总之，我们证明了暴露于空气中的超声波可减轻OBX大鼠抑郁模型中的抑郁样症状。这是第一项表明仅暴露于空气中的超声波就能在动物模型中引起情绪状态变化的研究。
