The influence of psychological simulation training on counter stress ability of rats / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To reproduce an animal model of psychological simulation training,and to investigate the influence of psychological training on the ability of counter physical stress.Methods Thirty-two Wister rats were assigned to four groups,8 for each,namely control group(group A),psychological training group(group B),stress group(group C)and psychological training prior to stress(group D).Rats in group A received neither psychological training nor stress,group B received psychological training without stress,group C received stimulation including stress of strong noise and strong light,but without psychological training,and group D,after psychologically training for 4 weeks,received the same stress stimulation as group C.Twenty-four hours after stress,open-field experiment was done on group C and D.At last,rats in all the 4 groups were anesthetized by ether and 5ml of blood was drawn from each rat in order to detect the content of beta-endorphin(?-EP),corticosterone and IL-1?.Results In the open-field experiments,the psychologically trained groups(B and D)showed remarkably lower scores than the un-trained groups(A and C).The levels of ?-EP and corticosterone were significantly elevated in rats after receiving stress stimulation,while that of IL-1? lowered dramatically.The level of ?-EP and corticosterone in psychological training group(group D)was remarkably lower,while that of IL-1? was higher,than the stress group(group C)during the stress.Conclusion Psychological training can lessen the inhibitory effects of harmful stress on endocrine and immunologic functions,and enhance the physical ability to confront stress.