Cortisol and Alpha-amylase changes during an Ultra-Running Event.

Elevated stress hormone concentrations can positively affect an athlete's overall performance during a competition, and in many cases, are necessary to be able to perform exercise. During extreme exercise, the body's ability to utilize energy efficiently can affect an athlete's performance. Elevated hormonal concentrations can have many benefits in regards to an athlete's overall performance during a competition.

Estrogen and voluntary exercise interact to attenuate stress-induced corticosterone release but not anxiety-like behaviors in female rats.

The beneficial effects of physical exercise to reduce anxiety and depression and to alleviate stress are increasingly supported in research studies. The role of ovarian hormones in interactions between exercise and anxiety/stress has important implications for women's health, given that women are at increased risk of developing anxiety-related disorders, particularly during and after the menopausal transition. In these experiments, we tested the hypothesis that estrogen enhances the positive impact of exercise on stress responses by investigating the combined effects of exercise and estrogen on anxiety-like behaviors and stress hormone levels in female rats after an acute stressor.

Estradiol selectively reduces central neural activation induced by hypertonic NaCl infusion in ovariectomized rats.

We recently reported that the latency to begin drinking water during slow, intravenous infusion of a concentrated NaCl solution was shorter in estradiol-treated ovariectomized rats compared to oil vehicle-treated rats, despite comparably elevated plasma osmolality. To test the hypothesis that the decreased latency to begin drinking is attributable to enhanced detection of increased plasma osmolality by osmoreceptors located in the CNS, the present study used immunocytochemical methods to label fos, a marker of neural activation. Increased plasma osmolality did not activate the subfornical organ (SFO), organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis (OVLT), or the nucleus of the solitary tract (NTS) in either oil vehicle-treated rats or estradiol-treated rats.

Differential effects of estradiol on drinking by ovariectomized rats in response to hypertonic NaCl or isoproterenol: Implications for hyper- vs. hypo-osmotic stimuli for water intake.

We examined the effects of estradiol on behavioral responses to osmotic challenges in ovariectomized (OVX) rats to test the hypothesis that estradiol enhances sensitivity to gradual changes in plasma osmolality (pOsm) in stimulating water intake. Despite comparably elevated pOsm after a slow infusion of 2 M NaCl, the latency to begin water intake was significantly less in estradiol-treated OVX rats compared to that in oil vehicle-treated rats. Other groups of OVX rats were injected with isoproterenol, which increases circulating angiotensin II.