SOCIETY FOR NEUROSCIENCE
ABSTRACTS
VOLUME 16, PART 2
20TH ANNUAL MEETING
ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI OCTOBER 28-NOVEMBER 2, 1990
379.7 CENTRAL MONOAMINES and BEHAVIOR IN THE LIZARD, ANOLIS CAROLINENSIS
N. Greenberg[1]. Cliff H. Summers[1], and P.H. Desan [2].
[1] University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Graduate Program in Etholology; [2] Stanford University Medical Center.
To clarify monoamine function in stereotyped behavior, the selective neurotoxin MPTP was used to deplete dopamine (DA) and norepinephrine (NE) in a model species, the lizard, Anolis carolinensis. Following the intraperitoneal injection of MPTP, animals manifested reduced spontaneous activity but normal or slighly facilitated aggression and reproductive behavior. Body color change, an index of altered autonomic sensitivity, suggested enhanced responsiveness.
Earlier work (Font et al. 1987) revealed MPTP-induced central neuropathies. Immunohistochemistry was employed to discriminate specific central catecholaminergic systems thereby affected. DA and NE immunoreactive perikarya were found in several sites in and near the periventricular hypothalamus, ventral tegmentum, substantia nigra, locus ceruleus, nucleus of the solitary tract, and raphe; while immunoreactive 5HT cells were found at one periventricular hypothalamic site and in the raphe nuclei.
Estimates of quantitative change in catecholamine levels obtained with high pressure liquid chromatography revealed that 100 hr after MPTP injection, DA and NE levels were 26% and 7% of control, respectively, while 5- HT was elevated to 200%