Alphaxalone, a steroid anesthetic, inhibits the startle-enhancing effects of corticotropin releasing factor, but not strychnine.
Corticotropin releasing factor ( CRF) is a 41 amino acid peptide implicated in the expression of stress- and fear-enhanced behaviors. CRF potentiates the amplitude of the startle reflex, and this effect is reversed by benzodiazepines (BDZ), suggesting that the startle-enhancing effects of CRF are modulated by changes in the GABA/BDZ receptor complex. In the present study, CRF-potentiated startle is inhibited by alphaxalone, a pregnane steroid anesthetic that is thought to act via the GABA/BDZ receptor complex. Alphaxalone (ALX) does not reduce CRF-potentiated startle by producing a generalized reduction in reactivity, since blockade of CRF-stimulated startle was not accompanied by an ALX-induced reduction in baseline startle amplitude and ALX does not reduce strychnine-potentiated startle. The effects of alphaxalone on CRF-potentiated startle may not be generalized to all CRF-stimulated behaviours, since alphaxalone failed to disrupt CRF-stimulated locomotor activity. CRF-potentiated startle is a useful assay for studying the effects of novel anxiolytic agents, and alphaxalone appears to be a steroid anesthetic with anxiolytic properties in this assay.[1]References
- Alphaxalone, a steroid anesthetic, inhibits the startle-enhancing effects of corticotropin releasing factor, but not strychnine. Swerdlow, N.R., Britton, K.T. Psychopharmacology (Berl.) (1994) [Pubmed]
Annotations and hyperlinks in this abstract are from individual authors of WikiGenes or automatically generated by the WikiGenes Data Mining Engine. The abstract is from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.About WikiGenesOpen Access LicencePrivacy PolicyTerms of Useapsburg
