GIPSON, Kevin; BOILY, Patrice; PROTTI, Lori; Univ. New Orleans; Univ. New Orleans; Univ. New Orleans: Effect of stress and stress-induced fever on sprint speed in Sprague-Dawley rats

In response to psychological stress, higher vertebrates (reptiles, mammals and birds) exhibit a series of physiological changes, known as the �Fight-or-Flight response�, that includes an increase in core temperature (TC) setpoint, or fever. The goal of this project was to begin the process of investigating the adaptive function of the stress response and of its associated fever in terms of immediate fight-or-fight requirement, specifically to partition the effect of stress-induced fever on escape performance, measured as maximum sprint speed. For this purpose, two experiments were conducted. For the first experiment, sprint speed and TC were measured on 15 stressed rats (stress induced by paired housing for 30 minutes) that previously received either an injection of saline (control) or of a fever inhibitor (300 mg/kg sodium salicylate). Sprint speed was measured using a computerized racetrack and TC was measured rectally. The second experiment was similar except that sprint speed and TC were measured on rats that were injected with saline and that were either exposed to stress (paired-housing) or not. Although stress induced a significant fever (by 2.1�0.49�C) and that sodium salicylate successfully inhibited this stress-induced fever (by 1.1�0.72�C), no difference in sprint speed was detected in either experiment. This suggests that, at least in the laboratory rat, the stress response, including its associated fever, does not affect sprint performance.