title: Prenatal stress affects network properties of rat hippocampal neurons.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Long-term effects of stress during pregnancy on brain and behavior have been analyzed extensively in recent years. One major problem with these studies is the inability to separate between the net effects of the prenatal stress (PS) and the effects of the stressed mother and siblings on the newborn animals.
  
  
  METHODS
  To address these issues, we studied morphological and electrophysiological properties of neurons in dissociated cultures of the hippocampus taken from newborn PS rats. We complemented these studies with experiments on behaving rats and recordings from slices taken from PS rats and their control rats.
  
  
  RESULTS
  While the density of cultured neurons was not different between PS and control rats, there were fewer glutamic acid decarboxylase-positive neurons in the former cultures. Additionally, cells taken from PS pups developed more extensive dendrites than control animals. These differences were correlated with a higher rate of synchronous activity in the PS cultures and a lower rate of spontaneous miniature inhibitory postsynaptic current activity. There were no differences in the excitatory synaptic currents or the passive and active properties of the recorded neurons in the two groups. Young PS rats were more motile in open field and elevated plus maze than control rats, and they learned faster to navigate in a water maze. Slices taken from hippocampus of PS rats expressed less paired-pulse inhibition than slices from control rats.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results indicate that PS affects network properties of hippocampal neurons, by reducing gamma-aminobutyric acidergic inhibition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, The Weizmann Institute, Rehovot 75100, Israel.
authors.forename: Gayane
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Grigoryan
authors.forename: Menahem
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Segal
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D000814:Aniline Compounds / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D002118:Calcium / Q000378:metabolism; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D049229:Dendritic Spines / Q000473:pathology; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005968:Glutamate Decarboxylase / Q000378:metabolism; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology*; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000473:pathology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology*; D018408:Patch-Clamp Techniques; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects / Q000473:pathology*; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D013997:Time Factors; D014162:Transfection; D014966:Xanthenes / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000814:Aniline Compounds; C409648:Fluo 4; D014966:Xanthenes; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; D005968:Glutamate Decarboxylase; D002118:Calcium