The present study was aimed to investigate the effect of environmentally relevant levels of lead exposure during gestational and early postnatal period on hippocampal dependent spatial memory in rats during adulthood. The pregnant rats were allowed to drink either normal water (control group) or 0.2% lead acetate solution (Lead treated group) during pregnancy and lactation. Thus rats pups of le...

BACKGROUND It is a common phenomenon that children experience multiple general anesthesias in clinical practice, which raises the question whether repeated exposure to general anesthetics would interfere with the development of the central nervous system of children. The present study was designed to evaluate the effects of repeated treatment with ketamine or midazolam on postnatal dendrite dev...

background: tamoxifen treatment induced cell death in the hippocampus formation of the prenatal and postnatal rat. the present study delineates the effect of tamoxifen on developing hippocampus in prenatal, postnatal and full term neonate rats received certain doses of the partial antagonist tamoxifen. methods: after perfusion and fixation, the brains were removed and processed for light and el...

The expansion of mobile phone technology has raised concerns regarding the effect of 900-MHz electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure on the central nervous system. At present, the developing human brain is regularly exposed to mobile telephones, pre- and postnatally. Several studies have demonstrated the acute effects of EMF exposure during pre- or postnatal periods; however, the chronic effects o...

BACKGROUND The long-term effects of perinatal growth and corticosteroid exposure on adrenal steroid concentrations in adults born very preterm are uncertain. OBJECTIVES To examine the effect of birth weight, early postnatal growth, and pre- and postnatal corticosteroid administration on serum adrenal steroids in 19-year-old subjects born very preterm. DESIGN AND METHODS Subjects born before...

Linoleic acid (LA), an n-6 polyunsaturated fatty (PUFA), is essential for fetal growth and development. We aimed to investigate the effect of maternal postnatal high LA (HLA) diet on plasma FA composition, hepatic lipids genes involved in lipid metabolism liver adult offspring. Female rats were fed with low (LLA; 1.44% LA) or HLA (6.21% diets 10 weeks before pregnancy, during gestation/lactatio...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND Studies of prenatal exposure to sex steroid hormones predict autistic traits in children at 18 to 24 and at 96 months of age. However, it is not known whether postnatal exposure to these hormones has a similar effect. This study compares prenatal and postnatal sex steroid hormone levels in relation to autistic traits in 18 to 24-month-old children.Fetal testosterone (fT...

Decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE) adversely affects reproduction and development. Our previous study showed that postnatal exposure to a low dose of decaBDE (0.025 mg/kg body weight/day) by subcutaneous injection on postnatal days (PNDs) 1 through 5 leads to reductions in testicular size and number of Sertoli cells and sperm, while higher dose of decaBDE (2.5 mg/kg body weight/day) had no signi...

Elastic fibers are thought to provide structural support for secondary septa as the lung undergoes the transition from the saccular to the alveolar stage. The synthesis of the soluble precursor of elastin, tropoelastin, occurs during a finite developmental period. We have investigated the developmental regulation of tropoelastin gene transcription and mRNA expression in fetal and postnatal rat ...

In the present study, we aimed at better understanding the short (acute) and long term (chronic) degenerative processes characterizing the juvenile rat model of light-induced retinopathy. Electroretinograms, visual evoked potentials (VEP), retinal histology and western blots were obtained from juvenile albino Sprague-Dawley rats at preselected postnatal ages (from P30 to P400) following exposur...