Morphological Changes in the Hypothalamic Suprachiasmatic Nucleus and Circadian Rhythm of Locomotor Activity in Hereditary Microphthalmic Rats.

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  • SUGITA Shoei
    Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Utsunomiya University
  • MINEMATSU Sumio
    Central Research Laboratories, Tsumura and Co.
  • NAGAI Katsuya
    Division of Protein Metabolism, Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University
  • SUGAHARA Kunio
    Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Agriculture, Utsunomiya University

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  • Morphological Changes in the Hypothalam

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Analysis of circadian locomotor activity, Golgi-Cox impregnation, and immunohistochemistry were studied on the hereditary microphthalmic rat which congenitally lacked the optic nerve. These blind rats showed free-running circadian rhythms in their locomotor activities. Both the normal and microphthalmic rats had similar ultradian rhythms in addition to circadian rhythms. The neuronal cell population and volume of the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the microphthalmic rats were 66% and 71% of those in normal rats, respectively. The number of SCN neurons containing vasoactive intestinal peptide-like immunoreactive substance was dramatically decreased to 35% of that in normal rats. Golgi-Cox impregnation revealed that three types of neurons in the SCN of the microphthalmic rats were consistently distinguished as observed in normal rats. Although there were no changes in the numbers of primary dendrites of the SCN neurons in the microphthalmic and normal rats, the number of secondary and tertiary dendrites in the SCN of the microphthalmic rats was smaller than that of normal rats. These observations suggest that the retinal input may be important for normal morphological formation of the SCN during development, but not for the generation of circadian rhythms and ultradian rhythms.<br>

Journal

  • Experimental Animals

    Experimental Animals 45 (2), 115-124, 1996

    Japanese Association for Laboratory Animal Science

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