Habituation of the cardiovascular responses to restraint stress in male rats: influence of length, frequency and number of aversive sessions.

Habituation of the cardiovascular responses to restraint stress in male rats: influence of length, frequency and number of aversive sessions. Stress. 2019 Jan 11;:1-11 Authors: Benini R, Oliveira LA, Gomes-de-Souza L, Crestani CC Abstract Habituation of cardiovascular responses upon repeated exposure to stress is controversial. Hence, we hypothesized that habituation of cardiovascular stress responses is influenced by length, frequency, and number of stress sessions in male Wistar rats. Blood pressure and heart rate were recorded via femoral artery catheterization and the tail cutaneous temperature was evaluated using a thermal imager. We observed a faster return of heart rate to baseline values during the post-stress period of the 10th daily session in rats subjected to either 60 (n = 8) or 120 min (n = 7), but not 30 min (n = 7), of restraint. Daily sessions of 120 min also decreased blood pressure during the recovery of the 10th session. The faster return of heart rate to baseline values during the post-stress period at the 10th session in rats exposed to daily 60 min sessions (n = 9) was not identified at the 5th (n = 9) and 20th (n = 9) sessions. Regarding frequency, the tachycardia during the 10th session was enhanced in rats subjected to 60 min of restraint presented every other day (n = 9) and decreased in rats subjected to a protocol of five daily sessions followed by two resting days (n...
Source: Stress - Category: Research Tags: Stress Source Type: research