Cited by 264Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and PostpartumStress Responses and CortisolBirth, Development, and Health

Prenatal stressors in rodents: Effects on behavior

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Weinstock, Marta·2017·Neurobiology of Stress

Abstract

The current review focuses on studies in rodents published since 2008 and explores possible reasons for any differences they report in the effects of gestational stress on various types of behavior in the offspring. An abundance of experimental data shows that different maternal stressors in rodents can replicate some of the abnormalities in offspring behavior observed in humans. These include, anxiety, in juvenile and adult rats and mice, assessed in the elevated plus maze and open field tests and depression, detected in the forced swim and sucrose-preference tests. Deficits were reported in social interaction that is suggestive of pathology associated with schizophrenia, and in spatial learning and memory in adult rats in the Morris water maze test, but in most studies only males were tested. There were too few studies on the novel object recognition test at different inter-trial intervals to enable a conclusion about the effect of prenatal stress and whether any deficits are more prevalent in males. Among hippocampal glutamate receptors, NR2B was the only subtype consistently reduced in association with learning deficits. However, like in humans with schizophrenia and depression, prenatal stress lowered hippocampal levels of BDNF, which were closely correlated with decreases in hippocampal long-term potentiation. In mice, down-regulation of BDNF appeared to occur through the action of gene-methylating enzymes that are already increased above controls in prenatally-stressed neonates. In conclusion, the data obtained so far from experiments in rodents lend support to a physiological basis for the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia and depression.

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Crossref · 10.1016/j.ynstr.2016.08.004

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  • Experimental animal studies controlling for shared genes show that maternal prenatal stress predicts anxiety-like behavior in offspring, related to impaired HPA axis regulation and decreased expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

    “Importantly, experimental animal studies that control for shared genes have demonstrated that maternal prenatal stress predicts anxiety like behavior in the offspring related to impaired hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis regulation and decreased expression of a brain-derived neurotrophic factor that mediates neural plasticity.39-41”

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Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. Asztely F. Gustafsson B. Ionotropic glutamate receptors. Their possible role in the expression of hippocampal synaptic plasticity Mol. Neurobiol. 12 1996 1 11 8732537
  2. Dhabhar F.S. McEwen B.S. Spencer R.L. Adaptation to prolonged or repeated stress–comparison between rat strains showing intrinsic differences in reactivity to acute stress Neuroendocrinology 65 1997 360 368 9158068
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Authors
Weinstock, M.
Affiliations
Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL)
Corresponding author
Weinstock, Marta
Venue
Neurobiology of Stress
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2017-02
Volume
6
Pages
3-13
ISSN
2352-2895 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2507945432
Cited by
264
References
165
Citations by year
2026: 15 · 2025: 28 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 41 · 2020: 33 · 2019: 25 · 2018: 28 · 2017: 11
FWCI
3.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Neurobiology of Stress (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Birth, Development, and Health
Keywords
prenatal stress, maternal stress, offspring behavior, anxiety, depression, social interaction deficits, schizophrenia, spatial learning and memory, hippocampal BDNF, hippocampal long-term potentiation, glutamate receptors, DNA methylation, neurodevelopmental hypothesis, sex differences, rodents

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