Key result
Six weeks of intermittent access to sucrose increased sucrose-licking activity, conferred resistance to stress-induced hypophagia, and lowered stress-induced neuronal activation in the lateral septum.
Intermittent sucrose consumption attenuates anorectic stress responses and lowers stress-induced neuronal activation in the lateral septum in rats.
May blunt stress-induced hypophagia in rats; leaves open translation to human stress responses or septal function.
Intermittent access to palatable food can attenuate anorectic and hormonal responses to stress in rats. The neuronal mechanisms of modulation of stress response by diets are not fully understood. The present study was conducted to create rat models with intermittent access to sucrose that demonstrate resistance to stress-induced hypophagia, to study the pattern of sucrose consumption by these rat models, and to investigate in which brain structures intermittent sucrose regimens modify stress-induced neuronal activation. The obtained results demonstrate that 6-wk intermittent access to sucrose without food restriction (4 day/wk ad libitum access to sucrose in addition to chow, and following 3 day/wk exclusive feeding of chow; SIA rats) and combined with food restriction (4 day/wk access to chow and sucrose restricted to 2 h/day, and following 3 days/wk on unrestricted chow; SIR rats) increased sucrose-licking activity. The alterations in the rats' feeding behavior were accompanied by a resistance of their body weight gain and food intake to 1-h restraint stress applied once per week. The chronic intermittent sucrose consumption significantly lowered, in the SIA and SIR rats, the levels of expression of corticotropin-releasing factor type 2 receptor and restraint stress-induced expression of c-fos mRNA in the medioventral part of the lateral septum. Conversely, the levels of the corticotropin-releasing factor type 2 receptor transcript in the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus were decreased only in the food-restricted SIR rats. The lower stress-induced neuronal activation in the medioventral part of the lateral septum may contribute to the attenuated anorectic stress response in the rats maintained on intermittent sucrose regimens.
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Martin et al. (2010) studied Stress-induced hypophagia. Intermittent access to sucrose was evaluated on Sucrose-licking activity, body weight gain, food intake, and neuronal activation (c-fos mRNA and CRF2 receptor expression). Six weeks of intermittent access to sucrose increased sucrose-licking activity, conferred resistance to stress-induced hypophagia, and lowered stress-induced neuronal activation in the lateral septum.
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