Electrodermal Response in Nonglabrous Skin of Freely Moving Rats: Mediation by the Sympathetic Nervous System and Evaluation in an Animal Model of Depression

Abstract

Electrodermal responses in the facial region of freely moving rats were recorded bilaterally. After a nociceptive stimulus (ammonia vapor exposure), the response (a transient negative potential followed by a longer-lasting positive potential) attained a similar amplitude on both sides. Surgical sympathetic denervation of facial skin by ipsilateral superior cervical ganglionectomy (SCGx) significantly decreased the electrodermal response. When an inferior cervical ganglionectomy was performed in addition to SCGx, a further decrease in electrodermal response was observed. Pretreatment of unilaterally SCGx rats with atropine blunted the electrical response in the control side to levels similar to those found in the SCGx side. Treatment with phenoxybenzamine or propranolol was ineffective. Skin potential responses were measured in adult rats administered with clomipramine from the 8th to the 21st day of life and exhibiting a long-lasting syndrome resembling human depression. Clomipramine-injected rats developed larger skin potential responses to sound stimulation than controls while responses to ammonia vapor were similar in both groups, as well as the habituation rate after repetitive exposure to ammonia vapor. The results indicate that some of the altered electrodermal responses found in depressed patients are detectable in the clomipramine animal model of endogenous depression.