Role of central ang ii-receptors in stress-induced cardiovascular and hyperthermic responses in rats. Saiki, Yukio, Tatsuo Watanabe, Nobusuke Tan, Masunori Matsuzaki & Shoji Nakamura. The Department of Physiology and Department of Internal Medicine, Yamaguchi University School of Medicine, Ube, Yamaguchi 755, Japan
APStracts 3:0270R, 1996.
The present study was carried out using a biotelemetry system to investigate whether central angiotensin II (ANG II) is involved in stress-induced cardiovascular and body-temperature responses in rats. Intracerebroventricular injections of the non-selective ANG II -receptor antagonist saralasin and of the ANG II AT1-receptor antagonist losartan attenuated both the heart rate and pressor responses to immobilization-stress in a dose-dependent manner. The elevation of plasma norepinephrine and epinephrine induced by immobilization-stress was also suppressed by central ANG II-receptor blockade, suggesting a general attenuation of stress-induced sympathetic nervous and adrenomedullary activity by central ANG II -receptor blockade. The hyperthermia induced by immobilization-stress was attenuated by central ANG II AT1-receptor blockade in a dose -dependent manner. The effects of central saralasin on the blood pressure response induced by immobilization-stress were greater in Wistar-Kyoto rats than in spontaneously hypertensive rats. The present results suggest that central ANG II AT1-receptors are involved in the expression of the tachycardia?and hyperthermia, as well as the pressor response, induced by immobilization-stress.

Received 9 November 1995; accepted in final form 20 June 1996.
APS Manuscript Number R700-5.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Regulatory Integrative
Comp. Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 25 July 1996