Examining the Consequences of Pre‐natal Exposure to Stress in the Behavior of Adult Offspring

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

Stress has been associated to the development of cognitive and other behavioral deficits. Moreover, it is well established that stress, during, and after a pregnancy, has multiple quantifiable effects in the overall development of the offspring. Our lab is interested in studying the predisposition to psychosis on the offspring upon maternal induction of stress together with N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor hypofunction during pregnancy. Thus, our first step is determining psychotic-like phenotypes in a group subjected solely to stress during pregnancy. Towards this end, mice were randomly divided into 2 groups: control and stressed. Males and females were paired to induce pregnancy. Five days after confirmation of a vaginal plug; a stress induction procedure was randomly administered on the experimental group. This procedure was continued until birth, after which the pups were allowed to be nurtured for 21 days. Pups were subsequently tested for behavioral abnormalities related to cognition, anxiety, sensorimotor gating, etc. Our results indicate a significant increase in anxiety-related behaviors in both the pups and mothers of the experimental group. Incidence of depression was also significantly increased in the experimental group compared with the control. Taken together, our findings so far suggest that prenatal stress exposure significantly changes several facets of adult mice behavior. Interestingly, the behaviors that are altered have been used to validate animal models of schizophrenia, suggesting that this experimental protocol will be useful to compare with additional groups showing additional dysfunction of the NMDA receptor.