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. 2020 Aug 17;21(16):5900.
doi: 10.3390/ijms21165900.

Hexobarbital Sleep Test for Predicting the Susceptibility or Resistance to Experimental Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Maria Komelkova  1   2 , Eugenia Manukhina  1   3   4 , H Fred Downey  1   4 , Alexey Sarapultsev  2 , Olga Cherkasova  5 , Viacheslav Kotomtsev  2   6 , Pavel Platkovskiy  7 , Stanislav Fedorov  7 , Petr Sarapultsev  2 , Olga Tseilikman  1   7 , David Tseilikman  7 , Vadim Tseilikman  1
Affiliations

Hexobarbital Sleep Test for Predicting the Susceptibility or Resistance to Experimental Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Maria Komelkova et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Hexobarbital sleep test (HST) was performed in male Wistar rats (hexobarbital 60 mg/kg, i.p.) 30 days prior to stress exposure. Based on the duration of hexobarbital-induced sleep, rats were divided into two groups, animals with high intensity (fast metabolizers (FM), sleep duration <15 min) or low intensity of hexobarbital metabolism (slow metabolizers (SM), sleep duration ≥15 min). The SM and FM groups were then divided into two subgroups: unstressed and stressed groups. The stressed subgroups were exposed to predator scent stress for 10 days followed by 15 days of rest. SM and FM rats from the unstressed group exhibited different behavioral and endocrinological patterns. SM showed greater anxiety and higher corticosterone levels. In stressed animals, anxiety-like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) behavior was aggravated only in SM. Corticosterone levels in the stressed FM, PTSD-resistant rats, were lower than in unstressed SM. Thus, HST was able to predict the susceptibility or resistance to experimental PTSD, which was consistent with the changes in glucocorticoid metabolism.

Keywords: corticosterone; glucocorticoid metabolism; hexobarbital sleep test; posttraumatic stress disorder; resilience.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Key pathways of glucocorticoid tissue metabolism of in fast (FM) and slow (SM) metabolizers.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Experimental design. EPM—elevated plus maze test.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Chromatogram of rat blood plasma extract: the black line refers to absorption at 240 nm, the red line is absorption at 260 nm; N12—11-dehydrocorticosterone; N14—corticosterone.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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