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Prenatal stress and postnatal development of neonatal rats — sex‐dependent effects on emotional behavior and learning ability of neonatal rats
Author(s) -
Nishio Hiroaki,
Kasuga Shigeo,
Ushijima Mitsuyasu,
Harada Yasuo
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
international journal of developmental neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.761
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1873-474X
pISSN - 0736-5748
DOI - 10.1016/s0736-5748(00)00070-8
Subject(s) - offspring , gestation , prenatal stress , psychology , developmental psychology , t maze , elevated plus maze , endocrinology , medicine , physiology , pregnancy , biology , anxiety , genetics , psychiatry
Maternal sound stress (800 Hz; 77 dB, every other minute for 15 min/day, from day 10 to 18 of gestation), combined with forced swimming stress (15 min/day), was found to cause potentiation of sound‐induced loss of locomotor activity, referred to as emotional behavior, of male offspring, but not that of female offspring, at 4 weeks of age. Maternal stress also caused an increase in the total number of errors by male, but not female offspring in the water‐maze test at 6 weeks of age. These effects of stress on emotional behavior and learning behavior were abolished when dams were pretreated with buspirone (30 min before the stress, from day 8 to 18 of gestation). Thus, prenatal stress might have sex‐dependent effects on emotional behavior and learning ability of neonatal rats.