Inhalative formaldehyde exposure enhances aggressive behavior and disturbs monoamines in frontal cortex synaptosome of male rats

Formaldehyde (FA) exposure is known to be toxic to central nervous system of mammals. In this paper, we evaluated the aggressive behavior after repetitive inhalative FA exposure to male SD rats, and explored the potential mechanism. The rats, ranging from 160 to 180 g, were randomly designated into the orchiectomized (ORX) group, the control and the inhalative FA treatment groups. Eight rats underwent orchiectomy surgery. Three days after the orchiectomy surgery, the inhalative FA (monitored to be 13.5 ± 1.5 ppm) treatment began. We found that the male SD rats, those were exposed to FA showed more aggressive behavior compared to the control. And the ORX rats exhibited less aggressive behavior than the control. Furthermore, the dopamine increased and 5-HT decreased significantly in frontal cortex synaptosome after inhalative FA treatment. It is the first to evaluate aggressive behavior and identified monoamines disturbances in the frontal cortex synaptosome after the repetitive inhalative FA exposure to rodents.