Ulceration of Oral and Gastric Mucosa Produced by Stress in Rats

Abstract

It has been shown that restraint stress is capable of producing ulceration of oral and gastric mucosa in Sprague-Dawley rats, and that the body-weight of the animals affects their susceptibility to such ulceration. As the rats progress from 100g to 220g body weight, their susceptibility to gastric ulcers decreases, while their susceptibility to oral ulcers increases. In contrast to observations with human subjects, a difference in ulcer incidence between the sexes was not observed for either type of ulcer. It seems likely that while causative factors operant in producing the gastric ulcers are a combination of vascular and acidity disturbances, in the case of the oral ulcers the initiating factor may be a direct traumatic injury to the mucosa.

Key-words:

• Gastric mucosa
• gastric ulcer
• stress
• mouth diseases