Open Access

ARTICLE

Changes in neuropeptides related to food intake in the rat arcuate nucleus after chronic immobilization stress and the effect of comfortable music exposure

HAO WANG^1,2,#, FANG FANG^1,#, CHAOYI FANG¹, RUNSHENG ZHAO^1,*, SHAOXIAN WANG^1,*

1 School of Preclinical Medicine, Hebei University of Chinese Medicine, Shijiazhuang, China
2 Department of Oncology, Hebei Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shijiazhuang, China

* Address correspondence to: Shaoxian Wang, ; Runsheng Zhao,
# These authors contributed equally to this work

BIOCELL 2020, 44(3), 421-429. https://doi.org/10.32604/biocell.2020.010257

Received 21 February 2020; Accepted 18 May 2020; Issue published 22 September 2020

Abstract

Stress is an inevitable interference factor that seriously affects health. Listening to music is an economical, noninvasive, and highly accepted tool for easing stress. However, physiological studies investigating the ability of music to reduce stress in daily life are limited. We established rat models of chronic immobilization stress (CIS) to observe changes in the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus (ARC) neurons involved in the regulation of food intake and the effect of comfortable classical music exposure. Twenty-one days of stress resulted in decreased food intake and delayed body weight gain; up-regulation of leptin receptor (Ob-R), cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART), proopiomelanocortin (POMC), and alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (α-MSH) expression; and downregulation of neuropeptide Y (NPY) and agouti-related protein (AgRP) expression in the ARC. Thus, peripheral leptin entered the ARC under chronic stress conditions, bound to Ob-R, and affected downstream nerve pathways related to appetite, such as the NPY/AgRP and CART/POMC pathways. Gentle classical music played at 65 dB reversed the abnormal expression of Ob-R and NPY induced by chronic stress. Thus, listening to comfortable music improves changes in ARC neurons related to the regulation of food intake in CIS rats, and these results provide a reference for basic research regarding how music therapy alleviates stress and stress-related health issues.

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