Effects of contextual fear conditioning and pentylenetetrazon on panic-like reactions induced by dorsal periqueductual gray simulation with N-methyl-D-aspartate. Artículo de Revista
Autores: Bruno de Oliveira Galvao; Bruno Costa Larrubia; Wouter Jan Hommes; Luis Fernando Cardenas; Antonio Pedro de Mello Cruz; Jesus Landeira Fernandez.
Resumen
Electrial or chemical stimualtion of the dorsal periaqueductual gray (DPAG) has been accepted as an animal model of panic attacks. This study invistigates the influence of anticipatory in the behavior induced by N-methy-D-aspartate (NMDA) microinjection into the DPAG of rats. Behavioral (i.e..anticipatory anxiety. In the firct experiment, animals exposed pentylenetrazol manipulations were employed as animal models of anticipatory anxiety. In the first experiment, animals exposed to contextual cues that had been previously associated with electric footshocks througth contextual fear conditioning were less lekely than non-conditioned control animals to display defensive reactions such as running and jumping in response to microinjection of NMDA (0.3 ul of 15.0 hg/ul) into the DPAG. In the second experiment, rats were inject intrapertioneally with the anxiogenic drug pentylenetetrazol (PTZ 15mg/kg) 5 minutes before receiving intra-DPAG microinfusion with the same dose of NMDA as in Experiment 1. Panic related behavior were registred in an experimental arena immediately after NMDA microinfusion. As compared with saline pre-treated animals. PTZ significantly attenauted NMDA-induced panic-like reactions. These results further demonstrate the usefalness of DPAG chemical stimulation as an animal model of panic attacks and suggest that behavioral and phamacological activation of the brain mechanisms underlying anticipatory anxiety migth exert an antipanic-like effect.
