Soliani Flaviane Cristina de Brito Guzzo, Cabbia Rafael, Batistela Matheus Fitipaldi, Almeida Amarylis Garcia, Kümpel Vinícius Dias, Yamauchi Junior Luiz, Andrade Telma Gonçalves Carneiro Spera de
Laboratory of Physiology, UNESP-Univ Estadual Paulista, Assis, São Paulo, Brazil.
Department of Biological Science, Laboratory of Physiology, UNESP-Univ Estadual Paulista, Assis, São Paulo, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2017 Oct 16;12(10):e0185572. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0185572. eCollection 2017.
The multiple insecurities, anatomical, physiological and psychological changes arising from the gestational period can generate an overload of stress in the mother and cause disturbances in the offspring, affecting it throughout its development. The existing analysis linking prenatal stress and offspring's anxiety have divergent results, being limited as to gestational week, type of stressor and age of progeny's assessment. Social separation has been described as a stressor that causes increase in anxiety. Thus, the present study evaluated the effects of social separation applied in one of the three gestational weeks of rat dams on the manifestation of the defensive behaviors related to generalized anxiety disorder and panic in the Elevated T Maze of the male progeny in three stages of development (1, 3 or 6 months of life). It was found, in the offspring of grouped (control) dams, increased behaviors associated with generalized anxiety disorder and a reduction of panic-like behaviors throughout development. For animals whose dams were socially separated during pregnancy, the most critical period of exposure was the 2nd gestational week, which affected the acquisition of aversive memory, demonstrated by the impairment on learning of avoidances of the offspring in all ages evaluated. Stressor exposure in this week also increased the avoidances, related to generalized anxiety of progeny in the 1st month and decreased escapes, related to panic in the 3rd month of life and, at the age of 6 months old, an inverse situation, with the reduction of the defensive behaviors associated to generalized anxiety disorder. The results show that, when assessing effects of prenatal stress on the manifestation of anxiety, not only the period of exposure is important, but also the age of offspring assessed.
孕期出现的多种不安全感、解剖学、生理学和心理变化会给母亲带来压力过载，并导致后代出现紊乱，在其整个发育过程中都会受到影响。现有的将产前压力与后代焦虑联系起来的分析结果存在分歧，在孕周、应激源类型和后代评估年龄方面存在局限性。社会隔离被描述为一种会导致焦虑增加的应激源。因此，本研究评估了在大鼠母鼠三个孕周之一施加社会隔离对雄性后代在发育的三个阶段（1、3或6个月大）的高架T迷宫中与广泛性焦虑症和惊恐相关的防御行为表现的影响。研究发现，在分组（对照）母鼠的后代中，与广泛性焦虑症相关的行为增加，并且在整个发育过程中类似惊恐的行为减少。对于在孕期母鼠经历社会隔离的动物，最关键的暴露期是妊娠第2周，这影响了厌恶记忆的获得，这在所有评估年龄的后代回避学习受损中得到证明。在这一周暴露于应激源还增加了与后代第1个月广泛性焦虑相关的回避行为，并减少了与3个月大时惊恐相关的逃避行为，而在6个月大时，情况相反，与广泛性焦虑症相关的防御行为减少。结果表明，在评估产前压力对焦虑表现的影响时，不仅暴露期很重要，所评估后代 的年龄也很重要。
