Strain differences in maternal neuroendocrine and behavioral responses to stress and the relation to offspring cocaine responsiveness.

Strain differences in maternal neuroendocrine and behavioral responses to stress and the relation to offspring cocaine responsiveness. Int J Dev Neurosci. 2019 Jun 22;: Authors: Bagley JR, Adams J, Bozadjian RV, Bubalo L, Kippin TE Abstract Early life stress exposure, including prenatal stress (PNS), influences subsequent risk for many disorders, including substance abuse, and these effects interact with genetic factors to determine risk for disease. We previously demonstrated gene X environmental interactions across the BXD recombinant inbred mouse strain panel and their progenitor strains in PNS modulation of cocaine-induced reward and locomotion. Critical to dissecting genetic interactions with PNS is consideration of the modes of stress transmission to the offspring. Both maternal neuroendocrine responses during stress and subsequent maternal-offspring interactions following stress may serve as transmission modes for PNS-induced changes in cocaine responsiveness. Therefore, we characterized the maternal stress response by measuring restraint stress-induced plasma corticosterone (CORT) during gestation as well as effects of restraint stress on dam-pup contact in the first 10 postnatal days in BXD and progenitor mouse strains. Restraint stress interacted with strain to affect plasma CORT levels and dam-pup contact, indicating heritable variation of the maternal stress response. Furthermore, strain-level variance in maternal stress ...
Source: International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Int J Dev Neurosci Source Type: research