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PMID: 24275289 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

Hippocampal mossy fiber leu-enkephalin immunoreactivity in female rats is significantly altered following both acute and chronic stress.

Journal of chemical neuroanatomy ·Vol. 55 ·2014-01-00 ·Pages 9-17

Pierce JP, Kelter DT, McEwen BS, Waters EM, Milner TA

Abstract

Research indicates that responses to stress are sexually dimorphic, particularly in regard to learning and memory processes: while males display impaired cognitive performance and hippocampal CA3 pyramidal cell dendritic remodeling following chronic stress, females exhibit enhanced performance and no remodeling. Leu-enkephalin, an endogenous opioid peptide found in the hippocampal mossy fiber pathway, plays a critical role in mediating synaptic plasticity at the mossy fiber-CA3 pyramidal cell synapse. Estrogen is known to influence the expression of leu-enkephalin in the mossy fibers of females, with leu-enkephalin levels being highest at proestrus and estrus, when estrogen levels are elevated. Since stress is also known to alter the expression of leu-enkephalin in various brain regions, this study was designed to determine whether acute or chronic stress had an effect on mossy fiber leu-enkephalin levels in females or males, through the application of correlated quantitative light and electron microscopic immunocytochemistry. Both acute and chronic stress eliminated the estrogen-dependence of leu-enkephalin levels across the estrous cycle in females, but had no effect on male levels. However, following acute stress leu-enkephalin levels in females were consistently lowered to values comparable to the lowest control values, while following chronic stress they were consistently elevated to values comparable to the highest control values. Ultrastructural changes in leu-enkephalin labeled dense core vesicles paralleled light microscopic observations, with acute stress inducing a decrease in leu-enkephalin labeled dense core vesicles, and chronic stress inducing an increase in leu-enkephalin labeled dense-core vesicles in females. These findings suggest that alterations in leu-enkephalin levels following stress could play an important role in the sex-specific responses that females display in learning processes, including those important in addiction.

Keywords
CA3 area Electron microscopy Estrogen Female Hippocampus Leu-enkephalin
MeSH Terms
Animals Dendrites/metabolism Enkephalin, Leucine/metabolism Estrous Cycle/metabolism Female Immunohistochemistry Male Mossy Fibers, Hippocampal/metabolism Rats Rats, Sprague-Dawley Sex Factors Stress, Physiological/physiology Stress, Psychological/metabolism
Chemicals
Enkephalin, Leucine
Authors & Affiliations
5 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Pierce Joseph P
Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, 407 East 61st Street, New York, NY 10065, United States.
Kelter David T
Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, 407 East 61st Street, New York, NY 10065, United States.
McEwen Bruce S
Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065, United States.
Waters Elizabeth M
Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065, United States.
Milner Teresa A
Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, 407 East 61st Street, New York, NY 10065, United States; Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology, The Rockefeller University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10065, United States. Electronic address: [email protected].
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Article Info
Journal
Journal of chemical neuroanatomy
Abbr.
J Chem Neuroanat
ISSN
1873-6300
DOI
10.1016/j.jchemneu.2013.10.004
Email
[email protected]
Published
2014-01-00
Epub
2013-00-22
Pages
9-17
Language
English
Region
Netherlands
NLM ID
8902615
PMCID
PMC4225781
Subset
IM
Grants
NINDS NIH HHS · R01 NS007080 · United States
NIA NIH HHS · R21 AG039850 · United States
NINDS NIH HHS · NS007080 · United States
NIDA NIH HHS · R01 DA008259 · United States
NIA NIH HHS · AG039850 · United States
NHLBI NIH HHS · P01 HL096571 · United States
NIDDK NIH HHS · DK07313 · United States
NIDA NIH HHS · DA08259 · United States
NHLBI NIH HHS · HL096571 · United States
NHLBI NIH HHS · R01 HL098351 · United States
NIDDK NIH HHS · T32 DK007313 · United States
NHLBI NIH HHS · HL098351 · United States
NIA NIH HHS · P01 AG016765 · United States
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1016/j.jchemneu.2013.10.004 PMC Full Text View journal details
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