Effects of intermittent feeding on neurochemical markers in aging rat brain.

Male Wistar rats were fed a diet of 24% protein either ad lib (AL) or every other day (EOD) beginning shortly after weaning. Rats were killed at 6 or 24-months of age. The corpus striatum, cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum were assayed for muscarinic cholinergic receptor binding and the activities of choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), L-glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH). Sensecent rats maintained on EOD feeding schedules from weaning showed a markedly higher density of striatal muscarinic binding sites and higher activities of cerebellar, hippocampal, and striatal ChAT, as compared with values in AL-fed rats. Regional GAD and TH activities were relatively unaffected by EOD feeding; however, at 6 months, EOD-fed rats had higher cortical GAD and lower cortical TH activities than corresponding AL-fed rats. EOD feeding for only 2 weeks produced no significant effects on neurochemical parameters examined in 24-month-old rats. We conclude that EOD feeding from weaning can alter neurochemical markers of senescence in rat brain; that cholinergic systems are affected in particular; and that the observed alterations produced by EOD feeding represent chronic rather than acute effects.

Aspects of chloride interference in zinc determination by atomic-absorption spectroscopy with electrothermal atomization.

During the determination of zinc in a polluted stream by atomic-absorption with electrothermal atomization, chloride was found to exercise a large negative interference (40%) when a carbon-filament atomizer was used, but not when a graphite-furnace atomizer was used. The effect on the filament method was confirmed and shown to be due to the formation of zinc chloride, and further complicated by interaction of this with iron. This interference could be overcome by the use of aqueous ammonia solution or silver nitrate added as matrix modifier. The absence of interference in the graphite-furnace method is attributed to the liberation of hydrogen and removal of chloride as hydrogen chloride. It is further suggested that these observations offer a basis for the exploration of apparently contradictory reports in the literature.