Inhibition of histamine release by local and intracerebroventricular infusion of galanin in hypothalamus, hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of awake rat: A microdialysis study

Abstract

The neuropeptide galanin is co-localized with histamine in subpopulations of neurons in the tuberomammillary nucleus suggesting its involvement in modulating histaminergic neurotransmission. The purpose of the present study was to investigate, by use of microdialysis, the effects of local intraparenchymal (combined infusion and microdialysis probe), and intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) infusions of galanin on extracellular levels of histamine in its major projecting areas, ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus ventrolateral part (VMHVL), CA3 area of ventral hippocampus (vHipp) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in separate groups (n=5 rats/each) of freely moving rats. Galanin (0.5nmol and 1.5nmol) dose-dependently decreased the basal histamine levels in the VMHVL to 77.1% (i.c.v.) at 40min and to 82.1% (intra-VMHVL infusion) already at 20min, of the control group (32.6±3.5fmol/10μl), whereas only 1.5nmol i.c.v. galanin and not the local infusions deceased the histamine levels in the vHipp (8.4±0.6fmol/10μl) to 82.8% and in mPFC (9.8±0.9fmol/10μl) to 87.5%. It is concluded that central administration of galanin decreased the basal extracellular histamine levels in major histamine projecting areas, however, these effects were less prominent than those observed for 5-HT (Kehr et al., 2002 [12]) and ACh (Yoshitake et al., 2011 [38]) in the ventral hippocampus following i.c.v. and/or local galanin infusions.