The Effect of Amitriptyline on Chloramphenicol: Induced Insomnia in Rats

Park, Soo A; Han, Jin Hee; Kim, Jeong Soo; Lee, Seong Pil

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: Several studies have shown that administration of antibiotics decreased sleep amount as well as bacterial colony numbers in rats. It is well known that antidepressants decrease rapid eye movement(REM) sleep and increase slow wave sleep(SWS) in both human and animal studies. However, little is known to date about the effects of antidepressant on antibiotic induced insomnia in rats. Therefore the authors studied the effects of amitriptyline on chloramphenicol induced insomnia in rats.
METHODS
The Sprague-Dawley strain rats were divided into control(N=6) and experimental group (N=5). The sleep-wake activity was recorded continuously for consecutive three days(baseline, day 1 and day 2). On day 1 both groups were intraperitoneally injected with chloramphenicol 150mg/kg. On day 2 the control group was intraperitoneally injected with chloramphenicol 150mg/kg only, whereas experimental group was injected with amitriptyline 12mg/kg and chloramphenicol 150mg/kg.
RESULTS
1) Chloramphenicol administration decreased dark period SWS and total REM sleep. 2) Amitriptyline administration increased total SWS and dark period SWS as well as decreased total wakefulness and dark period wakefulness. There was a decrease of REM sleep in the first 3 hours of light period, whereas a tendency of increase of REM sleep around the end of dark period.
CONCLUSION
From the above results, it is concluded that amitriptyline may be effective to reverse chloramphenicol induced insomnia in rats. Furthermore, chloramphenicol induced insomnia in rat could be a useful model for insomnia studies in the future.