Role of hypothermia in the production of gastric ulcers in a rat spinal cord transection model.

An association between hypothermia and gastric ulceration has been reported in rats in cervical cord section and in restraint models. The present study was designed to determine this relationship in cervical and in lumbar cord sectioned Sprague-Dawley rats. Ambient temperatures were varied by placing the sectioned animals in a room-temperature (23 degrees), incubator (28 degrees), or cold-room (4 degrees) environment for 8 hr. Rectal temperatures were recorded at the beginning and end of all experimental conditions. The endpoint of each study was the presence or absence of ulcers on naked eye examination. The length of each ulcer was measured and the lengths were totaled for each stomach. Cervical section rats became hypothermic at room temperature and developed extensive linear ulcerations of the glandular stomachs. A warm environment reduced both the decrement in core temperature and the degree of ulceration. Lumbar section rats only became hypothermic when exposed to cold and then developed significant ulcers. Hypothermia plays an important role in ulcerogenesis, but other factors are also important since not all the hypothermic rats developed ulcers and exposure of sham-operated rats to cold led to occasional pinpoint ulcer formation in spite of maintenance of a stable core temperature.