Hello to everyone!!!
I am working in the field of stress physiology, my work is about i will stress to mother during pregnancy and will check cognitive functions of its offspring.. I will using 40 days old pups for further experimental studies,, will it differ maternal stress effect and cognitive functions of the offspring before and after puberty period of the animal...
Probably, but there is no way of knowing that if your paradigm, with your animiamals, and in your hands, will have such and effect without doing the experiment yourself. There certainly are precedents in the literature.
Hi Sakthivel, I previously worked on the effect of early life stress on anxiety, visceral sensitivity and pain in adulthood using rat models. Early life stress is a major contributory factor to psychopathology later life. Effective maternal care is essential for proper development of the HPA axis (stress axis) – first week is crucial. There are chances that stressing their mother during pregnancy will consequently affect the ability to nurture the pups and this may potentially increase stress (through corticosterone) and cognitive function in adulthood. I believe you may see some significant changes in stress and cognitive function after purberty in pups from stressed mothers compared to controls provided you make use of good experimental paradigm. Good luck!
For further reading, see Lippmann et al. (2007); Wilkinson et al. (2011, 1999) and Sant et al. (1994);Smith et al. ( 2011).
The effectiveness (in adulthood) is well reported with Prenatal stress. As per our unpublished lab data we are finding in adulthood, the animals who undergone prenatal stress are clearly showing depression/anxiety phenotypes as compare to control however we did not do cognitive tests yet. Regarding hormonal question I would like to say that degree of stress response is sex specific (so hormones are involved) at least for depression and affective disorders (for adults) so it can not be ruled out for prenatally stressed too. Of course, this is just prediction. It may not be appropriate to talk about it until you do the experiments.
Good luck for your experiments.
Thank you so much for all your contribution and valuable suggestions.
Take a look at the publications of Ernest L. Abel in the late 80s - early '90s. He is a psychologist who studied the effects of prenatal alcohol and other drugs on offspring behavioural functioning.
I would caution you to track the onset of puberty in the female pups (vaginal opening). When I studied the effects of prenatal alcohol (using the Abel protocol), vaginal opening ranged from 27 through 39 days. If you are testing at day 40, you could have a mix of females who have had 2 4-day estrous cycles and some who are in their first cycle, which could give very different responses in your testing. Contrary to my expectations, prenatal alcohol actually advenced the onset of puberty.
While I can't comment on the effects of prenatal manipulations on later life stress physiology, I can tell you a little about stress in pubertal animals. In particular, adolescence is emerging as a very unique period for cognitive and neurobiological development. In particular, the negative feedback system regulating HPA axis responses to stress matures during pubertal development from approximately postnatal day 30-60 [see Romeo, R.D. (2010). Pubertal maturation and programming of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal reactivity. Front Neuroendocrinology, 31, 232-240.]. Additionally, there is a significant amount of cognitive and neurobiological changes that occur during puberty [See Spear, L.P. (2000). The adolescent brain and age-related behavioral manifestations. Neurosci Biobehav Rev, 24, 417-463. and Brenhouse, H. & Andersen, S. (2011). Developmental trajectories during adolescence in males adn females: A cross-species understanding of underlying brain changes. Neurosci Biobehav Rev, 35, 1687-1703.]. Lastly, the effects of various chronic stressors differ in adolescent compared to adult animals [see Hollis, F., Isgor, C., & Kabbaj, M. (2013). The consequences of adolescent chronic unpredictable stress exposure on brain and behavior. Neurosci, 249, 232-241.]. Thus, general differences between juvenile, adolescent, and adult animals will likely occur depending on the age at which your outcomes are measured. I would take these various normative developmental trends into account when interpreting the results of your experiments.
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