title: Behavioral effects of LPS in adult, middle-aged and aged mice.
abstract: Acute infections lead to alterations in behavior, collectively known as sickness behavior, which includes reduction in locomotion, food ingestion, sexual and social behavior, environmental exploration, and sleep profile. Although generally seen as undesired, sickness behavior represents a conserved strategy for animals to overcome disease. Aging process is associated with a variety of changes in immunity, which are referred to as immunosenescence, and include higher mortality by infectious diseases. Few works studied sickness behavior display in old animals. Thus, we sought to investigate the display of sickness related behaviors on aged mice. Adult (3-6 months old), middle-aged (12-15 m) and aged mice (18-22 m) were treated with i.p. LPS (200 microg/kg) and their behaviors were assessed in the open field and in the elevated plus-maze. Exploratory activity was similar in aged mice treated or not with LPS in both apparati. In the open field, locomotion remained at baseline levels; in the elevated plus-maze, there was a time-dependent decrease in motor activity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of São Paulo, Brazil. denisekinoshita@usp.br
authors.forename: Denise
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kinoshita
authors.forename: Daniel Wagner Hamada
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Cohn
authors.forename: Frederico Azevedo
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Costa-Pinto
authors.forename: Luiz Carlos
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: de Sá-Rocha
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000502:physiology; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects*; D001835:Body Weight / Q000187:drug effects; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000187:drug effects; D008070:Lipopolysaccharides / Q000494:pharmacology*; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000187:drug effects; D051379:Mice; D008809:Mice, Inbred C3H
chemical_list: D008070:Lipopolysaccharides