It is well known that stressful situation is one of the important factors causing
insomnia, however, the underlying mechanism is still elusive. Therefore, the establishment of a suitable animal model of stress
insomnia will be of great help to solve this problem. In this study, by combining with chronic unpredictable stress (multitude of stressors) and
sleep deprivation, we attempted to establish a rat model of stress
insomnia. It was observed that rats with stress
insomnia showed significant
weight loss, and less sleep quality in
pentobarbital sodium induced sleep test and electroencephalogram detection. Moreover, rats with stress
insomnia showed greater depression and anxiety detected by forced swimming,
sucrose preference test and open field. Since oxidative stress has been reported to be involved in
insomnia, we further evaluated the production of oxidative stress and found that the levels of lipid peroxidation product
malondialdehyde (MDA) in liver, serum total
bilirubin and urine biopyrrin were all significantly increased in rats with stress
insomnia. In addition, we also found that the memory of these rats with stress
insomnia was also obviously reduced in water maze. Taken together, these results demonstrate that the emotional behaviors, memory, oxidative and metabolism of the rats were all significantly changed after modeling, indicating a rat model of stress
insomnia was successful establishment, and this animal model will provide basis to further explore the underlying mechanism of chronic stress in
insomnia.