Pressure-induced striatal dopamine release correlates hyperlocomotor activity in rats exposed to high pressure.

Free-moving rats chronically implanted in the striatum with multifiber carbon electrodes selective to dopamine were compressed in a helium-oxygen mixture to 80 bars. Extracellular dopamine level and behavioral symptoms of high-pressure neurological syndrome were simultaneously recorded. Under these conditions, the extracellular level of dopamine monitored by differential pulse voltammetry was found to be pressure dependent, and hyperlocomotor activity, a behavioral symptom of high-pressure neurological syndrome, was found to be linked to these pressure-induced changes in dopamine release.