Effects of prenatal handling stress on adrenal weight and function and behaviour in novel situations in blue fox cubs (Alopex lagopus)

Braastad, Bjarne O.; Осадчук, Л. В.; Lund, GF; Bakken, Morten

doi:10.1016/s0168-1591(97)00114-7

Cited by 37 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…It also may provoke physiological alterations in the offspring, such as hypoxia, arterial hypotension, and bradycardia (Myers, 1975;Morishima, Pederson, & Finster, 1978) or increase in heart rate (Sontag, 1941) as well as abnormal adrenal gland response (Braastad, Osadchuk, Lund, & Bakken, 1998;Götz, Stahl, Ohkawa, Mendez-Gomez, & Dörner, 1986;Pollard, 1984).…”

Section: Effects Of Prenatal Stress: An Animal Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of pre‐ and postnatal stimulation on developmental, emotional, and cognitive aspects in rodents: A review

Chapillon

Patin

Roy

et al. 2002

Developmental Psychobiology

183

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Interactions between the organism and its environment, during pregnancy as well as during the postnatal period, can lead to important neurobehavioral changes. We briefly review the literature, and successively present the main results from our laboratory concerning the behavioral effects of prenatal stress, differential rearing conditions, and postnatal handling. We show that submitting primiparous DA/HAN rats to an acute emotional stress (exposure to a cat) at gestational day10, 14, or 19 leads to greatly increased mortality of pups and to decreased body weight of surviving animals. The effects of such a stressor on emotional reactivity are less obvious. Cognitive processes are impaired depending on the learning task. Enriched environments restore abnormal behaviors (emotional reactivity, motor skills, motor and spatial learning) due to brain trauma or genetic deficiencies. In any case, environmental enrichment does prevent or slow down aging effects. The effects of postnatal handling noted when using classical tests of emotional reactivity also are clear when defensive reaction paradigms are used. Furthermore, pregnant females that are early handled are less anxious than nonhandled females. We hypothesize that, when subjected to a stressor, the offspring of early-handled females would be protected from the deleterious effects of this stress compared to pups of nonhandled females.

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Section: Effects Of Prenatal Stress: An Animal Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of pre‐ and postnatal stimulation on developmental, emotional, and cognitive aspects in rodents: A review

Chapillon

Patin

Roy

et al. 2002

Developmental Psychobiology

183

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…However, studies on the physiological effects of stress during gestation on females and on their offspring are quite recent and still scarce. The situations studied involved transportation of Brahman cows [21,22], handling of blue foxes [7], isolation and restraint of sheep [34] and pigs [29], restraint of pigs with ACTH injection [14] but to date no experiments have been performed on dairy goats, a production system which is of increasing importance. Moreover, the results are often contradictory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Adrenals were found to be lighter in weight in blue foxes [7,28] while no modification was observed in pigs [29]. The birth weight of the litter was either not affected [7], increased [34], tended to be decreased [14,29] or tended to be increased [22] by prenatal stress.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physiological effects of repeated transport in pregnant goats and their offspring

et al. 2003

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-Although pregnant farm animals can encounter different stressors on numerous occasions, studies on the physiological effects of repeated stress during gestation on females and their offspring are quite recent and still scarce. The present experiment was performed to study the effects of repeated transportations on some physiological parameters in pregnant goats and to determine whether repeated exposure to prenatal stress resulted in alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenocortical (HPA) axis and the sympatho-adrenomedullary (SAM) system of their offspring. Twenty-six goats were assigned to one of two treatments during the last five weeks of gestation: 9 series of 55 min of transport (n = 13) or no transport (n = 13). During transport, the goats were physically and visually isolated from their congeners. Transport in isolation induced a large increase in plasma concentrations of cortisol, glucose and non-esterified fatty acids, which confirms that it is a very stressful situation for goats. Moreover, the goats did not become accustomed to the stressor. Gestation length, birth weight, litter weight and growth of the kids were not modified by treatment. Cortisol concentrations tended to be higher in prenatally stressed kids than in control kids 1 h after birth (P < 0.10) and the opposite was observed at 48 h of age (P < 0.10). Indeed, the decrease in cortisol concentrations between 1 and 48 h was greater in prenatally stressed kids than in control kids (time × treatment interaction, P < 0.01). The effect of prenatal stress on the HPA axis did not persist, since in older kids cortisol concentrations were not modified by treatment. At one month of age, prenatally stressed kids showed a higher medulla weight (P < 0.05) and tended to show a higher phenylethanolamine N-methyl transferase activity (P < 0.10) than control kids. Therefore, repeated transport in isolation is an important stressor in pregnant goats and can affect the HPA axis and the SAM system of their offspring. Résumé -Effets physiologiques de transports répétés pendant la gestation chez la chèvre et le jeune chevreau. Alors que les animaux d'élevage rencontrent fréquemment des agents stressants pendant leur gestation, ce sujet a reçu peu d'attention. Nous avons étudié les effets de transports répé-tés sur certains paramètres physiologiques de chèvres gestantes et tenté de déterminer si l'exposition répétée à un stress prénatal entraîne des altérations de l'axe corticotrope et du système catécholami-nergique de leurs chevreaux. Vingt-six chèvres ont été réparties dans deux traitements pendant les 5 dernières semaines de gestation : 9 transports de 55 min en étant physiquement et visuellement isolées de leurs congénères (n = 13) ou absence de transport (n = 13). Le transport en isolement a induit une augmentation importante des concentrations plasmatiques en cortisol, glucose et acides gras non-estérifiés, ce qui confirme que c'est un agent stressant important pour la chèvre. De plus, les chè-vres ne se sont pas habituées au traitement. L...

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“…If exposed before initiation of a developmental program, there may be no effect. During the critical period while the adrenocortical maturation program is running however, studies in rodents [50, 51], carnivores [52], and primates [53, 54] all have found maternal stressors to reduce adrenal size in the affected offspring. If a sufficiently severe stress response occurs after the critical period of adrenocortical development, adrenal size and subsequent adrenocortical responses to stress may be increased [55].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developmental Influences on Medically Unexplained Symptoms

Buffington

2009

Psychother Psychosom

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Background: Medically unexplained (or ‘functional’) symptoms (MUS) are physical symptoms that prompt the sufferer to seek healthcare but remain unexplained after an appropriate medical evaluation. Examples of MUS also occur in veterinary medicine. For example, domestic cats suffer a syndrome comparable to interstitial cystitis, a chronic pelvic pain syndrome of humans. Method: Review of current evidence suggests the hypothesis that developmental factors may play a role in some cases of MUS. Maternal perception of a threatening environment may be transmitted to the fetus when hormones cross the placenta and affect fetal physiology, effectively ‘programming’ the fetal stress response system and associated behaviors toward enhanced vigilance. After birth, intense stress responses in the individual may result in similar vulnerability, which may be unmasked by subsequent stressors. Results: Epigenetic modulation of gene expression (EMGEX) appears to play a central role in creation of this ‘survival phenotype’. The recent development of techniques to identify the presence of EMGEX provides new tools to investigate these questions, and drugs and other interventions that may reverse EMGEX are also under active investigation. Conclusion: Viewing MUS from the perspective of underlying developmental influences involving EMGEX that affect function of a variety of organs based on familial (genetic and environmental) predispositions rather than from the traditional viewpoint of isolated organ-originating diseases has at least two important implications: it provides a parsimonious explanation for findings heretofore difficult to reconcile, and it opens whole new areas of investigation into causes and treatments for this class of disorders.

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Effects of prenatal handling stress on adrenal weight and function and behaviour in novel situations in blue fox cubs (Alopex lagopus)

Cited by 37 publications

References 31 publications

Effects of pre‐ and postnatal stimulation on developmental, emotional, and cognitive aspects in rodents: A review

Effects of pre‐ and postnatal stimulation on developmental, emotional, and cognitive aspects in rodents: A review

Physiological effects of repeated transport in pregnant goats and their offspring

Developmental Influences on Medically Unexplained Symptoms

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