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Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging: a study of malnourished rats

Malnutrition is a main public health problem in developing countries. Incidence is increasing and the mortality rate is still high. Malnutrition can leads mayor problems that can be irreversible if it is present before brain development is completed. We used BOLD (blood oxygen level-dependent effect) Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to investigate the regions of brain activity in malnourished rats. The food competition method was applied to a rat model to provoke malnutrition during lactation. The weight increase is delayed even if there is plenty milk available. To localize those regions of activity resulting from the trigeminal nerve stimulation, the vibrissae-barrel axis was employed due to the functional and morphological correlation between the vibrissae and the barrels. BOLD response changes caused by the trigeminal nerve stimulation on brain activity of malnourished and control rats were obtained at 7T. Results showed a major neuronal activity in malnourished rats on regions like cerebellum, somatosensorial cortex, hippocampus, and hypothalamus. This is the first study in malnourished rats and illustrates BOLD activation in various brain structures.