ABSTRACT. To verify availability of skin conductance (SC) as an indicator for the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity in dogs, the changes in SC and blood levels of stress-related hormones induced by drugs were compared. SC and cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline levels were measured in 5 dogs on 4 occasions with or without drug-induced sedation at 7-day intervals (no treatment, intramuscular medetomidine 0.01 mg/kg, intramuscular acepromazine 0.1 mg/kg and intravenous fentanyl 0.02 mg/kg). The fentanyl treatment produced significantly higher levels of SC and plasma cortisol and adrenaline compared with the other 3 treatments. The plasma noradrenaline level also tended to be higher following the fentanyl treatment. These results indicate that SC may reflect changes in the SNS activities in dogs. KEY wORdS: nervous system, skin conductance, stress.doi: 10.1292/jvms.12-0478; J. Vet. Med. Sci. 75(6): 809-813, 2013 Stress is the physical and physiological influence exerted on bodily functions by threatening incidents. Transient stress is normally controlled by physiological activities that maintain the body in a steady state. However, exposure to continual stress is harder to control and may cause stress-related diseases, such as atrophy of lymph nodes [1], peptic ulcers [16] and high blood pressure [22]. To prevent these diseases and improve the quality of life, it is important to elucidate the stress levels experienced by the body.Traditional indicators of stress are stress-related hormones, such as cortisol and catecholamines [3, 5]. At first, stress is exhibited in the limbic system and is then transmitted to the rest of the body via 2 pathways: the hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal axis (HPA axis) and the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary axis (SAM axis). The HPA axis activates the secretion of cortisol, whereas the SAM axis activates the secretion of catecholamines. Thus, the release of stress-related hormones can be used to evaluate the current stress level [3]. These hormones are contained in both blood and saliva [12]; thus, it is common to measure cortisol and catecholamine levels in blood and saliva samples. This measurement method, however, can be problematic, as the manner in which the sampling is performed can induce more stress, especially in animals, and affect the results. Moreover, the sample analysis is complicated and time-consuming. Therefore, researchers have been looking for a noninvasive and easy-to-use indicator of stress in animals.Recently, skin conductance (SC) has been used as an indicator of stress in humans [6,7,14,18]. Cells in the stratum corneum each have an electrical double layer, which causes polarization of the skin to elicit a capacitance under the influence of an electric field. The electrical impedance of the stratum corneum is short-circuited by resistive channels that are located between the cells [20]. The activity of sweat glands, which are under the control of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), changes the ion permeability of the resistive channels and influences ...
Recently, hyperbaric oxygen therapy with a lower pressure and oxygen concentration (L-HBOT) than previous methods has been used for dogs in Japan; however, the influences of L-HBOT on dogs have not been clarified. To verify the influences of L-HBOT on physiological mechanism in dogs, we investigated blood gas parameters, glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activity, heart rate variability, stress-related hormones and skin conductance (SC) in 4 clinically normal beagle dogs with catheters in their carotid arteries and jugular veins when they were quiet, after running, after receiving L-HBOT (30% oxygen concentration, 1.3 atmospheres absolute, 30 min) or after not receiving L-HBOT. The results showed there were no changes in blood gas parameters, heart rate variability and catecholamine levels after L-HBOT. GPx activity was significantly higher, and the SC and cortisol level were lower in dogs that received L-HBOT than those when they were quiet. These results suggested that L-HBOT may have a small influence on oxygenation dynamics, activate antioxidant enzymes such as GPx, restrain autonomic nervous activity and control the balance between oxidation and antioxidation inside the body.
A number of recent discoveries suggest close links between anxiety- or probable relief-like behaviors and intracellular signaling molecules controlling morphogenesis in glial cells such as oligodendrocytes (oligodendroglial cells) in the brain, which have protective effects on neuronal cells. In the former behaviors, their intracellular signaling molecules include small GTPase members, some of which mediate cell morphological changes. Rnd2 is one such member, belonging to the Rho family of small GTPases. Despite the currently known functions of Rnd2, the precise roles of Rnd2 in cell morphogenesis and related functions in health and disease states remain to be elucidated. Herein we show that signaling through anxiety-related loss of function of the rnd2 gene is related to the regulation of oligodendroglial cell morphological differentiation in the FBD-102b cell line, which is often utilized as oligodendroglial cell differentiation model. Knockdown of Rnd2 with the clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CasRx system or RNA interference has been shown to inhibit morphological differentiation. Similarly, knockdown of Prag1 and Fyn kinase, signaling molecules acting downstream of Rnd2, also blunts differentiation. Rnd2 or Prag1 knockdown also decreases Fyn phosphorylation, which is critical for its activation and for oligodendroglial cell differentiation and myelination. Of note, hesperetin, a citrus flavonoid with protective effects on oligodendroglial cells as well as neuronal ones, can recover the defective differentiation induced by the knockdown of Rnd2/Prag1/Fyn. These results suggest that signaling through Rnd2/Prag1/Fyn is directly associated with normal oligodendroglial cell morphological differentiation. Deficiency of the signaling cascade is recovered by hesperetin, presenting one potential molecular construction underlying anxiety and possible therapeutic targets.
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