title: Swim stress increases hippocampal Zif268 expression in the spontaneously hypertensive rat.
abstract: The spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR), which is used as an animal model of ADHD, displays numerous behavioural differences on learning and memory tasks. This study characterises differences in neural Zif268 expression in male SHR, Wistar Kyoto (WKY) and Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats after a 10-min forced swim. Swim stress increased Zif268 expression in the hippocampus of SHR only. In addition, SHR had increased expression in the prefrontal cortex, dorsal striatum and decreased expression in the nucleus accumbens shell in comparison to WKY and SD; and increased expression in the amygdala compared to SD. These findings: (i) support previous research indicating that SHR have altered neurobiological response to stressors, (ii) extends the characterisation of multiple memory systems in SHR to include differences in Zif268 expression in brain regions underlying their altered behaviour and (iii) supports previous findings that SHR may have a specific deficit within the shell of the nucleus accumbens.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy & Structural Biology, Otago School of Medical Sciences, University of Otago, P.O. Box 913, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand. koreen.clements@anatomy.otago.ac.nz
authors.forename: K M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Clements
authors.forename: P E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Wainwright
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D051766:Early Growth Response Protein 1 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000378:metabolism*; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D011918:Rats, Inbred SHR / Q000502:physiology*; D011921:Rats, Inbred WKY; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013045:Species Specificity; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000473:pathology*; D013550:Swimming / Q000523:psychology*
chemical_list: D051766:Early Growth Response Protein 1; C486110:Egr1 protein, rat