Restraint stress impaired maternal behavior in female mice lacking the neuromedin B receptor (NMB-R) gene

Effects of daily and acute restraint stress during lactation on maternal aggression and behavior in mice

“…The finding of no effect of daily restraint stress (ended 2 h before testing) on maternal care is consistent with previous work in mice showing a lack of effect of restraint stress on maternal behavior 30 min after stressor exposure has ended (Yamada et al 2002). It is possible that the mice stressed daily habituated to the stressor and the use of chronic variable stressors would be valuable in future work to rule out effects of habituation.…”

“…Further, it is possible that restraint stress would have been found to affect maternal care if maternal behavior had been examined at differing time points following stress application. Interestingly, pup retrieval was found to be impaired immediately after restraint stress in inbred C57 mice (Yamada et al 2002), but in this study we found this measure to be unaffected. One possible reason for this discrepancy is that inbred C57 mice show faster retrieval times relative to hsd:ICR outbred mice (Gammie and Nelson 1999;D'Anna et al 2005), so perturbations may be easier to observe when the behavior is more reliably produced.…”

International Union of Pharmacology. LXVIII. Mammalian Bombesin Receptors: Nomenclature, Distribution, Pharmacology, Signaling, and Functions in Normal and Disease States

“…Studies comparing the potencies of NMB to GRP as well as binding studies or antagonist studies provide evidence that the BB 1 receptor can stimulate contraction of urogenital and gastrointestinal smooth muscle (esophageal, gastric, colon, and gallbladder) (Regoli et al, 1988;von Schrenck et al, 1989von Schrenck et al, , 1990Severi et al, 1991;Kilgore et al, 1993;Parkman et al, 1994;Milusheva et al, 1998), potently inhibit thyrotropin release from the pituitary gland by acting as an autocrine and paracrine regulator (Rettori et al, 1992;Pazos-Moura et al, 1996;Ortiga-Carvalho et al, 2003), and have potent CNS effects including inhibiting food intake independent of BB 2 stimulation (Ladenheim et al, 1994(Ladenheim et al, , 1996b(Ladenheim et al, , 1997bMerali et al, 1999;Ladenheim and Knipp, 2007) and mediating aspects of the stress and fear responses as well as various behaviors such as spontaneous activity (Merali et al, 2002(Merali et al, , 2006. BB 1 receptor knockout mice are now available and have undergone a limited number of investigations for actions of NMB Oeffner et al, 2000;Yamada et al, 2002bYamada et al, , 2003Yamano et al, 2002) (Table 1). In these mice the hypothermic effect of NMB was reduced by 50% without a change in the GRP response, supporting a possible BB 1 receptor-mediated role in thermoregulation: NMB-mediated gastric smooth muscle contraction was not affected, suggesting this is mediated not through BB 1 receptors, and no effect on feeding could be confirmed, although NMB did not have an effect in the control animals (Ohki- .…”

“…It was proposed that because of the known anorectic effects of NMB centrally, it may form part of a new adipose tissuehypothalamic regulating system for food intake (Hoggard et al, 2007). In BB 1 receptor knockout mice dysregulation of the thyroid occurred, suggesting that BB 1 receptor pathways are significantly involved in both TSH gene regulation and function (Oliveira et al, 2006), dysfunction in response to stress was seen (Yamada et al, 2002b;Yamano et al, 2002), impairment in the modulation of the CNS 5-HT system in response to stress occurred (Yamano et al, 2002), and an impairment of learning and memory was seen . The alterations in the CNS 5-HT and stress in these animals is particularly interesting, because the dorsal raphe nucleus is one of the brain regions that has a preponderance of BB 1 receptors (Wada et al, 1990;Ladenheim et al, 1992;Pinnock et al, 1994;Merali et al, 2006), which are located on 5-HT neurons, and stimulation of this nucleus by NMB stimulates release of 5-HT, resulting in anxiogenesis (Merali et al, 2006).…”

Disruption of neuromedin B receptor gene results in dysregulation of the pituitary–thyroid axis

“…NB-R knockout (NBR-KO) mice have been previously described (Ohki-Hamazaki et al 1999). They presented a reduced response to the central hypothermic effect of exogenously administered NB (Ohki-Hamazaki et al 1999), and behavioral changes, such as decreased marble-burying behavior and difficulties in learning and memory related to stress situations (Yamada et al 2002a(Yamada et al , 2003 as well as alterations in maternal behavior induced by stress (Yamada et al 2002b). Here we report for the first time that NBR-KO mice present alterations in pituitary gene expression, with functional consequences for the thyrotroph-thyroid axis.…”