Prenatal maternal stress in the rat: Its effects on emotional behavior in the offspring.

Abstract

That experiences early in life affect the subsequent behavioral development of the organism is well documented (Beach & Jaynes, 1954). However, there have been relatively few studies concerned with the effects of prenatal influences on behavior.There seems to be little doubt that a great many constitutional defects in both human and infrahuman organisms are directly traceable to prenatal influences. Sontag (1941) and Fraser and Fains tat (1951) review evidence which strongly supports this assertion.If the developing fetus can be affected by stressor agents, it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that these agents might influence the behavioral development and subsequent adjustment of the organism. This hypothesis has been favored by an accumulation of evidence from many disciplines, including population biology (Christian, 1959), teratology (Baxter & Fraser, 1950), clinical medicine (Strean & Peer, 1956), and experimental psychology (Thompson, 1957;Thompson & Sontag, 1956). Thompson and Sontag (1956) subjected albino rats to massive audiogenic seizures during gestation. The offspring from these animals were tested at 39 days of age and again at 60 days of age. In a water maze, the nonseizure controls took significantly fewer trials to reach criterion and made fewer errors.Using hooded rats, Thompson (1957) found that offspring of "stressed" mothers showed startling behavioral differences when compared with the offspring of the controls. He tested the offspring at 30 to 40 days of age and again at 130 to 140 days of age. When com-1 This paper is based on a thesis submitted by the author to the Psychology Department of Brown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MS degree.

Prenatal stress suppresses rat pup ultrasonic vocalization and myoclonic twitching in response to separation

“…Overall, however, the suppression of USVs by PNS rat pups and their relative lack of myoclonic twitching compared to controls suggest that prenatal stress applied throughout prenatal development may promote behavioral inhibition in stressful situations. The present findings that PNS pups suppress USVs in response to separation supports previous findings of Takahashi et al (1990), and is also supported by past research that demonstrates excessive fearfulness, emotional reactivity, anxiety, and physiological disruption in PNS animals (Ader & Plaut, 1968;Clarke & Schneider, 1996;Fride et al, 1986;Hockman, 1961;Poltyrev et al, 1996;Takahashi, Haglin, & Kalin, 1992;Thompson, 1957;Wakshlak & Weinstock, 1990;Weinstock, 1997). As reviewed above, while some arousal generally activates behavior, extreme arousal beyond a certain point produces behavioral inhibition.…”

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

“…Other protocols used various stressors applied daily in repeated sequences (DeFries, Weir, & Hegmann, 1967;Pardon, Gerardin, Joubert, Perez-Diaz, & Cohen-Salmon, 2000). In each of these studies, the animals were subjected to stressors chronically, either during the entire pregnancy (Hockman, 1961;Fride & Weinstock, 1984;Rojo et al, 1985), the first (Suchecki & Palermo-Neto, 1991) or the second half of pregnancy (Herrenkohl & Whitney, 1976;Szuran, Zimmermann, & Welzl, 1994;Williams, Davis, McCrea, Long, & Hennessy, 1999), or at least during several consecutive days (Archer & Blackman, 1971;Fujioka et al, 1999;Sobrian, 1977).…”

Prenatal psychological stress and offspring behavior in rats and mice

“…1962) used untreated controls, whereas Hockman (1961) used controls which were handled daily. Ader and Conklin (1963) and Ader and Plaut (1968) showed that the latter procedure produces offspring behavior different from that of untreated controls, and therefore Hockman's investigation is not strictly comparable with those of Thompson and his co-workers. In an investigation of the effects of prenatal crowding on offspring behavior, Keeley (1962) grouped 15 female mice in a cage 6 X 12 X 5% in., and used as the control condition 5 mice in the same-sized cage.…”