Emotional fever in rats persists after vagotomy

Gentle handling of small rodents leads to an emotional fever characterized by a 1-2 degrees C rise in colonic temperature associated with peripheral vasoconstriction and inhibition of this response after administration of salicylate. Because vagotomy has been recently shown to hinder microbial fever, we wanted to know whether emotional fever would also be suppressed by vagotomy in rats. The completeness of subdiaphragmatic vagotomy was verified on the basis of gastric dilation after a 24-h fast. Gentle handling produced fevers of equal magnitude: colonic temperature ca. +1.6 degrees C, in vagotomized and + 1.5 degrees C sham-vagotomized rats. On the other hand, intraperitoneal salicylate (300 mg x kg(-1)) largely prevented the fever response caused by gentle handling. It was concluded that the afferent message in the vagus is not necessary for emotional fever.