Changes of TH Immunoreactivities and Melatonin Treatments in the Rat Brain by Chronic Stress / 대한해부학회지

ABSTRACT

These experiments were performed to investigate the effect of saline, melatonin, stress, stressedmelatonin on TH immunoreactivity in rat brain. The animals were injected with melatonin (1 mg/kg, i.p.) after electric shocks for 15days. The results were as follows; 1. TH immunoreactive neurons in brain (the number of staining neuron & the stain intensity in LC and parietal cortex, the stain intensity in arcuate nucleus and median eminence of cerebral cortex) were significantly increased in stressed group compared with all the other groups. 2. TH immunoreactive neurons in brain (the number of staining neuron & the stain intensity in LC and parietal cortex, the stain intensity in arcuate nucleus and median eminence of cerebral cortex were significantly decreased in stressed-melatonin treated group compared with stressed group but were significantly increased compared with the other groups. These experiments indicate that its increase is inhibited by melatonin treatment even though, stress increases TH immunoreactivity in LC and Par.