Early life undernutrition in rats

Effects of early-life undernutrition in artificially reared rats: subsequent body and organ growth.

1. Four groups of rat pups were reared: mother-reared (MR) control (well-fed) and undernourished (MRC and MRU respectively) and artificially reared (AR) control and undernourished (ARC and ARU respectively). Pups for artificial rearing were fitted with a gastric cannula on postnatal day 5 and were fed, by intermittent gastric infusion, expressed rats' milk (days 5-7), mixtures of rats' milk and...

Social interactions among adult male rats after early undernutrition.

Early life environment modulates 'handedness' in rats.

Right handedness is one of the most prominent markers of human functional brain asymmetry. Deviation from this norm appears to be associated with certain developmental disorders. While many studies have dealt with the genetic contribution to the determination of handedness, few have examined whether environmental factors that are subtler than forced hand switching can modulate the development o...

Histological Evaluation of Pancreas Following Early Life Stress in Exposure to Pubertal Stress in Male Rats

Background and purpose: Stressful events in early-life induce metabolic disorders in adolescence. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of early-life stress on number or area of Langerhans islets in exposure to foot-shock and psychological stress in male rats. Materials and methods: The rats were divided into six groups: control (without stress), early-stress (stress at 2 weeks o...

Fetal undernutrition and disease in later life.

Recent findings suggest that coronary heart disease and stroke, and the associated conditions, hypertension and non-insulin dependent diabetes, originate through impaired growth and development during fetal life and infancy. These diseases may be consequences of 'programming', whereby a stimulus or insult at a critical, sensitive period of early life results in long-term changes in physiology o...