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Depression-like behavior in subclinical hypothyroidism rat induced by hemi-thyroid electrocauterization

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the depression-like behavior performances of subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) rat. SCH rat model was induced by hemi-thyroid electrocauterization, and the behavior performances were measured by sucrose preference test, force swimming test (FST), and tail suspension test (TST). SCH rat model was established successfully by hemi-thyroid electrocauterization. In the behavior tasks, SCH rats displayed depression-like behavior were indicated as a significant elevation of immobility time in both the TST and FST, though the sucrose preference was not significantly decreased. The index of left adrenal cortex in both SCH and clinical hypothyroidism (CH) group significantly increased, and many large lipid vacuoles were observed in the zona fasciculata cells. The serum corticosterone concentration and hypothalamic corticotropin-releasing hormone mRNA expression 2 h after behavior test was markedly up-regulated in CH rats, but not SCH rats, indicated that SCH induced a less impairment of HPA axis than CH did. The important finding of this study was that the concentration of hippocampal T3 was lower in SCH group than that of the sham group. Furthermore, the results of Pearson correlation test showed that the immobility behaviors in TST and FST were both negatively correlated with hippocampal T3 concentration. Taking together, our results indicated that SCH could result in depression-like behavior, accompanied with subtle hyperactivity of HPA axis. The reduced hippocampal T3 prior to the reduction of thyroid hormone in serum might be taken as an early sign of hippocampus impairment in the progression from SCH to CH.

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Acknowledgments

This project was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (81030026), the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province of China (11040606Q19), and Scientific Research of BSKY from Anhui Medical University (KJ201210).

Ethical standards

All experimental procedures were approved by Animal Care and Use Committee at University of Science and Technology of China, which complies with the National Institute of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (NIH Publication No. 85-23, revised 1985).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Pharmacy, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, 230032, Anhui, China

    Jin-Fang Ge & Yun-Yun Peng

  2. CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Diseases, School of Life Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230027, Anhui, China

    Jin-Fang Ge, Cong-Cong Qi, Fang-Han Chen & Jiang-Ning Zhou

  3. Department of Neurobiology and Biophysics, School of Life Science, University of Science and Technology of China, 443 Huang-Shan Road, Hefei, 230027, Anhui, China

    Jiang-Ning Zhou

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Ge, JF., Peng, YY., Qi, CC. et al. Depression-like behavior in subclinical hypothyroidism rat induced by hemi-thyroid electrocauterization. Endocrine 45, 430–438 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-013-0001-4

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