Surgery is a serious stressor and a cause of anxiety for the patients. Reconstructive surgery patients are mostly operated on because of certain functional impairment or disability; on the contrary, cosmetic surgery patients do not have any physical impairment and they are operated on because of mostly psychologic reasons. The aim of this study was to compare the anxiety levels in the reconstru...

A series of experiments administered a low dose range (0, 1.25, 2.5 and 5 mg/kg) of (+/-)-3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, 'Ecstasy') to rats and assessed them in a variety of standard tests of anxiety. These tests included the emergence and elevated plus-maze tests, social interaction, cat odor avoidance and footshock-induced ultrasonic vocalizations. MDMA increased anxiety-related beh...

The purpose of this study was to determine the roles of the presynaptic 5-hydroxtryptamine1A (5-HT1A) receptors in the median raphé nucleus (MRN) and of the postsynaptic 5-HT1A receptors in its projection area of the dorsal hippocampus in the social interaction and elevated plus-maze tests of anxiety. Direct administration of the 5-HT1A receptor agonist (+/-)-8-hydroxy-dipropylaminotetralin (8-...

Human postmortem studies have demonstrated that fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF2) expression is decreased in the brain of depressed individuals. It remained unclear, however, whether this is a consequence of the illness or whether FGF2 plays a primary role in the control of mood and emotions. In this series of studies, we first ask whether endogenous FGF2 expression correlates with spontaneous ...

In this randomized sham-controlled study we examined the anxiolytic and sedative effects of acupressure on parents in the preoperative holding area before their children's surgery. Sixty-one parents received acupressure either at the Yintang point (midpoint between the two eyebrows) or at a sham point. Anxiety (as measured by the Stait-Trait Anxiety Inventory), arterial blood pressure, and hear...

Exposure of rats to footshocks leads to an enduring behavioral state involving generalized fear responses and avoidance. Recent evidence suggests that the expression of negative emotional behaviors produced by a stressor is in part mediated by dynorphin and its main receptor, the kappa opioid receptor (KOR). The purpose of this study was to determine if a subcutaneous injection of the long-acti...

The use of adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) in neurobehavioral research is rapidly expanding. The present large-scale study applied the newest video-tracking and data-mining technologies to further examine zebrafish anxiety-like phenotypes. Here, we generated temporal and spatial three-dimensional (3D) reconstructions of zebrafish locomotion, globally assessed behavioral profiles evoked by several...

UNLABELLED INTRODUSTION: Sibutramine has been described as a drug recommended for treatment of obesity, since it has the ability to inhibit the reuptake of serotonin and noradrenaline in the central nervous system, thereby increasing energy expenditure. OBJECTIVE Investigate the anxiogenic and anxiolytic effects of acute and chronic treatment with sibutramine in rats submitted to the task of ...

Previous studies have suggested that oxytocin (OT) may be anxiolytic in female laboratory rats and mice. The elevated plus-maze was used to compare anxiety-related behaviors of OT-deficient (OT-/-) and wild-type (OT+/+) mice. Female OT-/- mice displayed increased anxiety-related behavior compared with OT+/+ mice. The percentage of entries (P < 0.0002) and time spent (P < 0.003) in the open arms...

BACKGROUND As benzodiazepines (BZDs) have anxiolytic effects, it is expected that they influence the stress system. During short-term treatment, BZD use was found to suppress cortisol levels. However, little research has been done on the effects of long-term BZD administration on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. METHODS The association between long-term BZD use and cortisol leve...