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. 2023 Jan 5:436:114055.
doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2022.114055. Epub 2022 Aug 11.

Activity-based anorexia alters hypothalamic POMC and orexin populations in male rats

Helena Pinos  1 , Ricardo Sánchez-Serrano  2 , Beatriz Carrillo  3 , José Manuel Fernández-García  4 , Rocío García-Úbeda  5 , Ana de Paz  6 , Gabriela E López-Tolsa  7 , Pedro Vidal  8 , Valeria Gutiérrez-Ferre  9 , Ricardo Pellón  10 , Paloma Collado  11
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Free article

Activity-based anorexia alters hypothalamic POMC and orexin populations in male rats

Helena Pinos et al. Behav Brain Res. .
Free article

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate the orexin and POMC populations in the hypothalamic nuclei of male Wistar rats after the activity-based anorexia (ABA) procedure. Four groups were established based on food restriction and activity: activity (A), ABA, diet (D) and control (C). The ABA protocol consisted of free access to a running wheel for a period of 22 h and access to food for 1 h. When the animals in the ABA group reached the ABA criterion, were sacrificed, and their brains were collected and serially sectioned. The free-floating sections were processed for orexin and POMC immunostaining. The number of orexin A-ir cells in the perifornical-dorsomedial-hypothalamus continuum (PFD) and lateral hypothalamus (LH) and the number of POMC-ir cells in the arcuate nucleus (Arc) were estimated. Data on food intake, body weight and wheel turns were also analyzed. The ABA procedure caused a significant decrease in body weight along with a significant increase in activity. Moreover, at the end of the ABA procedure, the number of POMC-ir cells decreased in the Arc in the A group, and significantly more in the ABA group, and the number of orexin A-ir positive cells decreased in the LH in D and ABA groups. The differential decrease in POMC in the ABA group emphasizes the importance of the melanocortin system in the maintenance of ABA, but more research is needed to elucidate the involvement of this peptide in the mechanism that promotes and maintains anorexia nervosa and how increased activity may interact with all these processes.

Keywords: Activity-based anorexia; Arcuate nucleus; Lateral hypothalamus; Male rat; Orexin; POMC.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of interest All authors listed have contributed to the work and all authors have agreed to submit the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript that I am now submitting, and no portion of the work has been or is currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. All experiments were designed according to the guidelines published in the “NIH Guide for the care and use of laboratory animals”, the principles presented in the “Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Neuroscience Research” by the Society for Neuroscience, the European Union legislation [Council Directives 86/609/EEC and 2010/63/UE] and the Spanish Government Directive [R.D. 1201/2005]. Experimental procedures were approved by our Institutional Bioethical Committee [UNED, Madrid]. Special care was taken to minimize animal suffering and to reduce the number of animals used to the minimum necessary. Moreover, no portion other than the abstract has been published or posted on the Internet. The corresponding author can provide all original data for review. The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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