With a view to examine the effect of chronic maternal stress on cognitive function in the offspring during young age, pregnant Wistar rats were subjected to restraint stress from embryonic day 11 till delivery. Male and female pups born to these stressed rats were subjected to passive avoidance test on postnatal day 30 and 31. Results were compared with rats of the same age and sex born to cont...

Maternal exposure to stress during pregnancy is associated with significant alterations in offspring neurodevelopment and elevated maternal glucocorticoids likely play a central role in mediating these effects. Placental 11b-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 (HSD11B2) buffers the impact of maternal glucocorticoid exposure by converting cortisol/ corticosterone into inactive metabolites. Howev...

OBJECTIVE Perturbations to the prenatal environment have been associated with the development of adult chronic disease, findings that gave rise to the "Barker Hypothesis" or the "developmental origins of adult disease" concept. In this study, we used an animal model to determine the metabolic consequences of maternal prenatal stress and high-fat feeding on the developing offspring. RESEARCH D...

RATIONALE Stress-elicited disruption of immunity begins in utero. OBJECTIVES Associations among prenatal maternal stress and cord blood mononuclear cell (CBMC) cytokine responses were prospectively examined in the Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma Study (n = 557 families). METHODS Prenatal maternal stress included financial hardship, difficult life circumstances, community violence, an...

Prenatal exposure of the developing brain to various types of environmental stress increases susceptibility to neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and schizophrenia. Given that even subtle perturbations by prenatal environmental stress in the cerebral cortex impair the cognitive and memory functions, this review focuses on underlying molecular mec...

Food intake and weight gain are known to be affected by stress. However, the type and duration of the stress may have variable effects, with males and females responding differently. We report the short-term and long-term effects of prenatal and adult immobilization stress, as well as the combination of these two stresses, on weight gain and food intake in male and female rats and the role of p...

Despite its importance for development, relatively little is known about how allelic variation interacts with both pre- and postnatal stress. We examined the interaction between serotonin transporter (5-HTT) genotype, prenatal and postnatal stress on glucocorticoid receptor (GR) mRNA expression, corticosteroid stress responses, and behavior in adult male rats. Prenatal stress involved a daily r...

The prenatal period is of critical importance in defining how individuals respond to their environment throughout life. Stress experienced by pregnant females has been shown to have detrimental effects on offspring biology in humans and a variety of other species. It also is becoming increasingly apparent that prenatal events can have important consequences for the behavior, health, and product...

The effects of chronic mild prenatal stress on leukocyte infiltration into the airways was investigated in rat offspring. The chronic prenatal stress consisted of transitory and variable changes in the rat's living conditions. Offspring at adult age were actively sensitized (day 0) and intratracheally challenged (day 14) with ovalbumin. Bronchoalveolar lavage was performed in the offspring at 4...