These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Sex-dependent changes induced by prenatal stress in cortical and hippocampal morphology and behaviour in rats: an update.
    Author: Weinstock M.
    Journal: Stress; 2011 Nov; 14(6):604-13. PubMed ID: 21790452.
    Abstract:
    Recent prospective studies have shown that gestational stress in humans is more likely to cause cognitive and emotional problems in the offspring if it occurs during weeks 12-20 of pregnancy. There are also suggestions that such problems may be gender dependent. This review describes recent studies that found sex differences in the behaviour and brain morphology of rats stressed prenatally during the equivalent period of neuronal development in humans. Learning deficits are more prevalent in males and anxious behaviour in females but their appearance depends also on the timing and intensity of the stress and the age when the offspring were tested. Cognitive deficits and anxiety are linked to a sex-dependent reduction in neurogenesis and in measures of dendritic morphology in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampal formation. Maternal adrenalectomy prior to the stress prevents the anxiety in both sexes and learning deficits in males. Corticosterone administration to the dam to mimic levels induced by stress reinstates only the anxiety, indicating that it arises from foetal exposure to corticosterone from the maternal circulation. Learning deficits in males may result from a combination of a reduction in testosterone and in aromatase activity, together with the action of other adrenal hormones.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]