Dietary vitamin E deficiency increases anxiety-related behavior in rats under stress of social isolation.
It has been demonstrated that vitamin E deficiency from birth increases anxiety-related behavior using knockout animals with no vitamin E transfer proteins. The current study was undertaken to elucidate the effect of dietary vitamin E deficiency on anxiety-related behavior of rats in different housing conditions. Male Wistar strain rats were divided into two groups during the weaning period and fed a control or vitamin E-deficient diet. All rats were housed in groups (three rats per cage) for 3 weeks. In the fourth week, half of the rats in each dietary treatment were kept in social housing and the other half were kept in individual housing. Before sacrifice, rota-rod and elevated plus-maze (EPM) tests were performed to measure motor coordination and anxiety, respectively. The EPM test revealed that vitamin E-deficient rats spent less time in the open arms and showed more stretch-out posture than the control rats, showing that anxiety increased with dietary vitamin E deficiency. Furthermore, vitamin E deficiency-induced anxiety behavior was observed more prominent in individual housed rats than in social housed rats. On the basis of these results, we conclude that dietary vitamin E deficiency induces anxiety in rats especially under stress of social isolation.
Okura
Yuki
Y
Department of Agricultural Chemistry, Faculty of Agriculture, Meiji University, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan.
Tawara
Satoshi
S
Kikusui
Takefumi
T
Takenaka
Asako
A
D000818:Animals; D001007:Anxiety / Q000209:etiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D012934:Social Isolation / Q000523:psychology*; D017392:Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances / Q000378:metabolism; D014811:Vitamin E Deficiency / Q000097:blood / Q000378:metabolism / Q000503:physiopathology*; D024502:alpha-Tocopherol / Q000097:blood / Q000378:metabolism
D017392:Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances; D024502:alpha-Tocopherol