Effects of electrical stimulation of the rat vestibular labyrinth on c-Fos expression in the hippocampus

Martin Hitier (1) , Go Sato (2) , Yan-Feng Zhang (3) , Stéphane Besnard (1) , Paul Smith (4, 5)

1 COMETE - Mobilités : Vieillissement, Pathologie, Santé
2 Université de Tsukuba = University of Tsukuba
3 Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics [Oxford]
4 University of Otago [Dunedin, Nouvelle-Zélande]
5 University of Auckland [Auckland]

Several studies have demonstrated that electrical activation of the peripheral vestibular system can evoke field potential, multi-unit neuronal activity and acetylcholine release in the hippocampus (HPC). However, no study to date has employed the immediate early gene protein, c-Fos, to investigate the distribution of activation of cells in the HPC following electrical stimulation of the vestibular system. We found that vestibular stimulation increased the number of animals expressing c-Fos in the dorsal HPC compared to sham control rats (P ≤ 0.02), but not in the ventral HPC. c-Fos was also expressed in an increased number of animals in the dorsal dentate gyrus (DG) compared to sham control rats (P ≤ 0.0001), and to a lesser extent in the ventral DG (P ≤ 0.006). The results of this study show that activation of the vestibular system results in a differential increase in the expression of c-Fos across different regions of the HPC.

Mots clés: Vestibular system; Electrical stimulation; Hippocampus; c-Fos

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]; Neurosciences; Psychologie

Martin Hitier, Go Sato, Yan-Feng Zhang, Stéphane Besnard, Paul Smith. Effects of electrical stimulation of the rat vestibular labyrinth on c-Fos expression in the hippocampus. Neuroscience Letters, 2018, 677, pp.60-64. ⟨10.1016/j.neulet.2018.04.041⟩. ⟨hal-02304973⟩