Juvenile and adult footshock stress modulate later adult gastric pathophysiological reactions to restraint stresses in rats.

Abstract

Rats were stressed with (a) signaled footshocks, (b) unsignaled footshocks, or (c) handled without footshocks as a prepubertal juvenile (28-36 days old), as an adult (96 days old), or both. This yielded nine treatment groups (3 x 3). Two days after the adult treatment, all animals were challenged by restraint and partial immersion in water (19 degrees C) to assess their relative susceptibility to gastric erosions ("ulcers"). We found that any prior exposure to footshock stress increased the amount of ulcers; juvenile and adult experiences each produced equal increases but the combination of the two was less ulcerogenic than either alone. The predictability of the footshocks did not modulate ulcerogenicity. Adult corticosterone responses to (a) adult stress and (b) ulcer induction were not related to the observed ulcer severity; however, juvenile footshock stress appeared to reduce the corticoid response to the ulcerogenic challenge but not to the adult footshock stress.