Effects of prenatal stress on voluntary ethanol intake and brain parvalbumin expression in adult female rat offspring

Abstract

Objective To observe the effects of prenatal stress on voluntary ethanol intake(EI) and brain parvalbumin (PV) expression in adult female rat offspring. Methods Six pregnant SD rats were randomly divided into prenatal stress (PS, n= 3) and control group (CON, n=3). During the late gestational periods, rats in PS were subjected to restraint stress for consecutive 3 days. The adult female offspring in PS were randomly divided into PS plus stress group(PS-S, n=6) and PS without stress group(PS-NS, n=6). The adult female offspring in CON were randomly divided into stress(CON-S, n = 6) and no stress group(CON-NS, n = 6). The rats in PS-S and CON-S were subjected to restraint stress, and 3 weeks later ice-water stress. All the rats in each group were of fered free choice between water and ethanol solution. Then EI of every rat was assessed every day. The PV expression in hippocampns and frontal cortex were detected by immunohistochemistry. Results The basal El of PS-NS at the 1st, 4th and 6th week were significantly less than that of CON-NS(P<0.05). The EI of PS-S at the 1st week after restraint stress was significantly higher than that of CON-S (P<0.05). But EI of PS-S at the 3rd week after ice-water stress was much less than that of CON-S (P<0.05). The PV expression of PS-S offspring in the hippocampal CA2 and frontal cortex M1 were obviously lower than that of CON-S(P<0.05). Conclusion Prenatal stress could affect on alcohol preference of adult female rat offspring, which possibly is related to the reduction of PV expression in brain. Key words: Prenatal stress; Ethanol intake; Parvalbumin; Rat