Fig. 5.

Oral gavage of vehicle is stressful to rats. (a) Experimental design. Different cohorts of rats were sacrificed after handling (baseline), after vehicle gavage and after acute immobilisation stress, and corticosterone levels were quantified subsequently. (b) Oral gavage of vehicle as well as stress significantly increases corticosterone levels. Increase in corticosterone due to gavage and stress were not significantly different from each other (Baseline, N = 7, After Gavage, N = 8, After Stress, N = 5). ^^^^ indicates p < 0.0001 in One-way ANOVA. **** indicate p < 0.0001 in post-hoc Tukey's test.