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    Sex differences in the citrus lemon essential oil-induced increase of hippocampal acetylcholine release in rats exposed to a persistent painful stimulation.

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    The microdialysis technique was used to study the ability of essential oil from citrus lemon to modulate hippocampal acetylcholine (ACh) release in male and female rats. Animals were allowed to inhale this odor while experiencing a persistent nociceptive input (50 microl formalin, 5%) or under control conditions (sham-injection). In males, exposure to the essential oil did not change the time course and magnitude of the ACh increase induced by pain. In females, the pain-induced increase of ACh was delayed and increased by exposure to lemon essential oil. The present results indicate that lemon essential oil affects the ACh release differently in male and female rats during a painful condition

    Effects of gonadal hormones and persistent pain on non-spatial working memory in male and female rats.

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    There are indications of a modulatory role carried out by gonadal hormones and pain in cognitive functions. We have examined this issue in male and female rats by assessing the impact of gonadectomy and persistent pain on the object recognition test. Intact and gonadectomized male and female rats were exposed to an open field (15 min) in which three objects were placed (Trial 1); the same test was repeated 2 h later (Trial 2), after the replacement of a "familiar" object with a novel one. Three days later (Day 2), the same procedure was repeated (Trial 3 and 4 with 2 h in between) but half of the animals were exposed to formalin-injection immediately before Trial 3. The latency, frequency and duration of approaching the three objects were recorded in each trial and compared by sex, gonadectomy and formalin treatment. The results showed that gonadectomized males and females had lower levels of approach to all objects and less locomotor/exploratory activity than intact animals in all experimental trials; their behaviour was not affected by repetition of the test or by pain. On Day 1, intact males showed a higher level of approach to the novel object than females. In intact males, the 2 h delay between the first and second trial failed to induce any significant modification of exploration of the novel object with respect to the familiar one, while in intact females the novel object was approached much less than the familiar one. Similarly on Day 2, the novel object was approached for a longer time by intact males than by all the other groups. In conclusion, our data show that physiological levels of circulating gonadal hormones significantly affected the performance of male but not female rats when exposed to the object recognition test

    Gonadectomy and persistent pain differently affect hippocampal c-Fos expression in male and female rats

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    Hippocampal c-Fos expression was studied in male and female rats after gonadectomy and persistent pain. Three weeks after surgery, animals were sham- or formalin-injected (50 mu l, 10%) and placed in a familiar testing apparatus. The formalin-evoked licking, flexing and jerking of the injected paw were recorded for 60 min, c-Fos was determined in the dorsal and ventral hippocampus: dentate gyrus (DG), CA1 and CA3. Gonadectomy induced higher c-Fos in the dorsal DG of both sexes, in all ventral subfields of males and in the ventral CA3 of females. In normal males a nd females, formalin increased c-Fos in the dorsal DG and in the male ventral subfields. In gonadectomized ones formalin decreased or did not change c-Fos. Gonadectomy induced longer flexing in males and females. These data indicate an important and sex-dependent interaction between gonadal hormones, nociceptive input and neuronal activity in the hippocampus
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