Water maze performance and hippocampal weight of prenatally stressed rats.

Prenatally stressed rats were tested for water maze performance with the water temperature kept at 18 degrees C (low stress) or cooled down to 12 degrees C (high stress). When the platform had been removed from the pool and the water was kept at 12 degrees C, prenatally stressed males--but not females--spent more time searching for the platform in the correct quadrant of the pool than their controls. Prenatal stress reduced hippocampal weight in both sexes.