Expression data from rat with different quantities of PS

Paradoxical sleep function remains unknown although several studies indicate that it might play a role in learning and memory. To investigate what modifications paradoxical sleep may bring at the molecular level in neocortex and in hippocampal formation, we profiled gene expression in these structures in rats with different quantities of PS by cDNA microarrays approach. The first group of rats (n=12) was deprived of PS (PSD) by the multiple platform method during 78h, the second group of rats was allowed to recover from this deprivation (PSR) during 6 hours (n=12), the third group of rats remained in their home cage during all the protocol PSC (n=12). All animals were euthanasied at 16h. An equal mass amount of total RNA from the right neocortex and hippocampal formation was pooled from two sets of 6 rats from each experimental group (PSC, PSD, PSR). For the first set of animals, two independent pools of total RNA from both structures were made for each condition to control for the technical variability of the microarray method.