Do long-term glucocorticoid treatments induce behavioral rhythm disturbances in rats?

To examine the influences of a long-term glucocorticoid treatment on behavioral rhythm in rats, I measured motor activity, feeding and drinking, and body temperature in rats that had been treated with corticosterone over a long term, by means of an automatic behavioral measurement system combined with a telemetry system. Either a cholesterol (100 mg, as a control) or corticosterone (100 mg) bead was implanted subcutaneously in rats for 3 months, and the effects of the treatments on behavioral parameters were evaluated 2 to 4 months after the termination of the treatments. Corticosterone did not significantly change daily rhythms of all four parameters and mean values of them. However, three out of six corticosterone-treated rats appeared to show higher the mesor of motor activity compared with the control group. The present study demonstrates that a long-term glucocorticoid treatment does not impair behavioral daily rhythm, then suggests that a long-term glucocorticoid exposures could not damage the endogenous clock of the brain, that is, the suprachiasmatic nucleus. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.