Chronic psychological stress is known to induce functional and molecular alterations in central circuits regulating micturition. Here, we investigated whether odor-specific olfactory stimulation modulates stress-associated bladder dysfunction and related brain transcriptional responses. Female C57BL/6J mice were subjected to repeated water avoidance stress (WAS) and exposed to inhalated essential oils derived from Alpinia zerumbet (Gettou) or Citrus depressa (Shikuwasa). Bladder function was assessed by continuous cystometry, spontaneous locomotor activity was evaluated during the dark phase, and whole-brain transcriptional responses were analyzed using exploratory RNA sequencing to characterize stress-associated transcriptional patterns. WAS was associated with bladder overactivity characterized by shortened contraction intervals, together with a tendency toward increased bladder weight and reduced locomotor activity. Transcriptomic analysis identified stress-associated upregulation of immediate-early genes and suppression of synapse-related gene categories. Gettou inhalation was associated with attenuation of stress-related immediate-early gene expression and partial normalization of bladder contraction dynamics, whereas Shikuwasa inhalation induced broad transcriptional changes without measurable improvement in bladder function. These findings suggest that odor-specific transcriptional modulation may be associated with partial functional improvement of stress-evoked bladder overactivity.
Nishijima et al. (Fri,) studied this question.