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Query: UMLS:C0038187 (starvation)
 24,951 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Male Wistar rats were housed in cages linked to running wheels and fed on a schedule designed to reduce their body weight by 20-30%. During this period of semi-starvation the rats increased their daily running wheel activity (RWA) by up to 30 km/day. RWA could be kept at this level provided that body weight was kept constant. Different serotonin receptor (5-HT) agonists and antagonists were tested for their effects on RWA and it was found that RWA could be suppressed only by agonists with high affinity for the 5-HT1C receptor (TFMPP, mCPP, DOI and quipazine). Serotonin receptor agonists, which do not pass the blood-brain barrier, and 5-HT itself had no effect on RWA. The inhibitory effect of the agonists on RWA was prevented by pretreatment with antagonists that also had high affinity for 5-HT1C receptors (mianserin, metergoline and mesulergine). From these results we conclude that semi-starvation-induced hyperactivity can be blocked by 5-HT1C agonists. Furthermore we suggest that the animal model presented in this study might be a useful tool for in vivo studies on selective 5-HT1C receptor activation.
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PMID:Activation of 5-HT1C-receptors suppresses excessive wheel running induced by semi-starvation in the rat. 136 75

Aging is associated with progressive changes in behavioral functions, in part caused by muscle frailty, called sarcopenia. However, it was not clear whether certain neurotransmitters are directly involved in behavioral aging. Here we investigated aging of locomotion behaviors with an associative learning property, called basal and enhanced slowing response in Caenorhabditis elegans. Basal slowing response is a modest slowdown in response to food, while enhanced slowing response is a greater slowdown response when animals experience starvation. The behaviors are mediated by dopamine and serotonin, respectively. During aging, basal slowing response was increased, resulting in a diminished difference between the two slowing responses. The behavioral change occurred during early phase of aging prior to the timing when sarcopenia was observed in previous studies. Interestingly, expression of a serotonin biosynthesis marker, tph-1Colon, two colonsGFP, was increased in old animals. Serotonin receptor antagonists and deletion mutants of their target receptor genes (ser-1 and ser-4) partially suppressed age-related changes in locomotion behaviors. Thus, manipulating serotonin signal at receptor levels suppresses early phase of locomotion aging.
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PMID:Manipulation of serotonin signal suppresses early phase of behavioral aging in Caenorhabditis elegans. 1733 25