Abstract
INTRODUCTION AND HYPOTHESIS: Epidemiological studies demonstrated that patients suffering from overactive bladder often present with different mental problems, amongst which depression is the most frequently observed. The main goal of our study was to check if the repeated administration of corticosterone (CORT) is able to evoke the depressive-like behaviour and detrusor overactivity (DO) symptoms in rats. Moreover, we investigated whether the acute administration of common antidepressants (imipramine, 30 mg/kg, and fluoxetine, 15 mg/kg), antimuscarinic (oxybutynin chloride, 0.5 mg/kg) or CRF(1) (SN 003, 1 mg/kg) antagonists has an impact on the cystometric parameters, behaviour in the Porsolt test, and overall locomotor activity of animals exposed to CORT. METHODS: The experiments were carried out on female Wistar rats. All applied surgical and histopathology procedures, cystometric investigations, locomotor activity and forced swim measurements have been fully described in the published literature. RESULTS: Fourteen-day administration of CORT may induce both depressive and DO symptoms in rats, which are reversed by the inhibition of CRF(1) receptors. CONCLUSIONS: It seems that the CRF(1) receptor could be an interesting target for overactive bladder pharmacotherapy, particularly in patients with co-existing depression.