title: Psychological prenatal stress reduced the number of BrdU immunopositive cells in the dorsal hippocampus without affecting the open field behavior of male and female rats at one month of age.
abstract: We examined whether prenatal psychological stress with little physical stress causes changes in the behavior and neurogenesis of the offspring of Sprague-Dawley rats at one month. Dams in the last trimester of gestation were psychologically stressed by placing them in a social communication box and shocking a rat on the other side of a transparent wall. They suffered little physical stress. Male and female offspring from the dams showed little change in an open field test at postnatal day (PND) 30. To evaluate neurogenesis in the brain, BrdU was intraperitoneally injected at PND 35 into offspring not used in the open field test. Immunohistochemical examinations of BrdU in their dorsal hippocampus at PNDs 42 and 112 revealed that the number of BrdU immunopositive cells in the offspring of prenatally stressed rats was significantly smaller than in the offspring of unstressed ones. These results together with our previous finding that prenatal psychological stress can alter specific behaviors suggest that prenatal psychological stress can suppress neurogenesis in the dorsal hippocampus of rats of both sexes at PND 35 even though impairment in the behavioral task has not yet appeared.
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychiatry, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, University of Miyazaki, 5200 Kihara, Kiyotake, Miyazaki 889-1692, Japan.
authors.forename: Kei
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Odagiri
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Abe
authors.forename: Chika
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kawagoe
authors.forename: Ryuichiro
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.forename: Testuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ikeda
authors.forename: Hisae
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Matsuo
authors.forename: Hiroi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nonaka
authors.forename: Kosuke
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ebihara
authors.forename: Toshikazu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nishimori
authors.forename: Yuta
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ishizuka
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hashiguchi
authors.forename: Yasushi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ishida
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology; D001973:Bromodeoxyuridine / Q000378:metabolism*; D002452:Cell Count; D004597:Electroshock / Q000009:adverse effects; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D055495:Neurogenesis / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology
chemical_list: D001973:Bromodeoxyuridine