Blunted Behavioral and Trigeminal Responses to Acidic Fumes in the African Naked Mole-Rat
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1
University of Illinois at Chicago, United States
Acidosis in the skin triggers activation of pain pathways, and behaviors indicative of pain in vertebrates. The exception is the naked mole-rat, the only known vertebrate to show physiological and behavioral insensitivity to acid pain in the skin. The goal of the present study was to determine behavioral and physiological responses of this species to airborne acidic fumes, which would be expected to affect the trigeminal pain pathway in other species. Behaviorally, naked mole-rats did not avoid fumes from moderately high concentrations of acetic acid (10 and 20%), and c Fos labeling showed no increase in activity in the trigeminal nuclei and nucleus tractus solitarius. In contrast, these concentrations triggered behavioral aversion and increased Fos activity in other laboratory rodents. For a very high concentration of acetic acid (50%), naked mole-rats showed significant avoidance behavior and increased Fos labeling in the nucleus tractus solitarius caudal region, which receives vagal chemosensory information. However, there was no increase in trigeminal labeling, and in fact, activity significantly decreased. This pattern is opposite of that associated with another irritant, ammonia fumes, which elicited an increase in trigeminal but not nucleus tractus solitarius Fos labeling, and no behavioral avoidance. Behavioral avoidance of acidic fumes, but no increased labeling in the trigeminal pain nucleus is consistent with the notion of adaptations to blunt acid pain, which would be advantageous for naked mole-rats as they normally live under chronically high levels of acidosis-inducing CO2.
Keywords:
acid,
irritant,
naked mole-rat,
nucleus tractus solitarius,
Pain,
Substance P,
trigeminal,
voltage gated sodium channels
Conference:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology, College Park. Maryland USA, United States, 5 Aug - 10 Aug, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster (but consider for participant symposium and student poster award)
Topic:
Neuromodulation
Citation:
Lavinka
PC and
Park
T
(2012). Blunted Behavioral and Trigeminal Responses to Acidic Fumes in the African Naked Mole-Rat
.
Conference Abstract:
Tenth International Congress of Neuroethology.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnbeh.2012.27.00101
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Received:
23 Apr 2012;
Published Online:
07 Jul 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Prof. Thomas Park, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, United States, tpark@uic.edu