Unpredictable chronic prenatal stress and manifestation of generalized anxiety and panic in rat's offspring

Publication date: Available online 26 March 2018 Source:Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry Author(s): Flaviane Cristina de Brito Guzzo Soliani, Rafael Cabbia, Vinícius Dias Kümpel, Matheus Fitipaldi Batistela, Amarylis Garcia Almeida, Luiz Yamauchi Junior, Telma Gonçalves Carneiro Spera de Andrade Often the manifestation of anxiety cannot be explained by known environmental or hereditary factors. With this perspective, it has been reported that prenatal stress may lead to emotional disturbances in the offspring. However, studies relating prenatal stress to anxiety are controversial and generally the stressors used do not mimicks the reality experienced by mothers. Thus, this investigation evaluated the effects of an unpredictable chronic stress scheme applied in one of the three gestational weeks of rats on the manifestation of generalized anxiety and panic disorder in the progeny (males), analyzing, respectively, the avoidances and escapes in the elevated T-maze, at the 1st, 3rd or 6th month of progeny life. Control offspring showed increased generalized anxiety disorder and reduced panic at 6 months. The effects of prenatal stress depended on the gestational week where it occurred and on the progeny age: during the 1st gestational week the generalized anxiety decreased in 6 month old rats. Animals in the 3rd month, prenatally stressed during the last gestational week, showed anxiogenesis and panicogenesis, but effects reverted at ...
Source: Progress in Neuro Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry - Category: Psychiatry Source Type: research