Sang-Young Kim1, Eun-Ju Jang2,
Kwan-Soo Hong2, Chul-Hyun Lee2, Do-Wan Lee1,
Chi-Bong Choi3, Bo-Young Choe1
1Department of Biomedical
Engineering, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea, Republic of; 2The
Korea Basic Science Institute, Korea, Republic of; 3Department of
Radiology, Kyunghee University Medical Center, Korea, Republic of
The present study investigated to determine whether acute restraint stress causes the changes in neurotransmitter level, especially glutamate, in rat brain and whether the acute stress-induced changes in brain metabolism can be recovered during the rest. In vivo proton spectra obtained from prefrontal cortex and hippocampus using 4.7 T animal magnet revealed significantly increased glutamate concentrations in rats exposed to acute restraint stress. However, the increased glutamate level in both brain regions could not be recovered during 1 hour rest. Our results suggest that glutamate neurotransmission in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus be strongly implicated in regulating of stress response.
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