Effects of prenatal maternal cold stress on spontaneous, exploratory and anxious behaviors in offspring

doi:10.12047/j.cjap.5722.2019.030

Abstract

Abstract: Objective: To study the effects of prenatal cold stress on the behavior and mood of offspring in pregnant rats. Methods: Six SPF-class Wister pregnant rats were randomly divided into normal temperature control group and cold stress group with 3 rats in each group. The pregnant female rats in the normal temperature control group were kept in the environment of (22±2)℃, and the pregnant female rats in the cold stress group were placed in the artificial intelligence climate chamber at(4±0.1)℃ for 7 days before the birth, and the young rats were divided into normal temperature after the young rats were born. After the young rats were born, they were divided into normal temperature control group of male rats (MR, 22), normal temperature control group of mother rats (FR, 15), cold stress group of male rats (MC, 15), and cold stress group of female rats (FC, 15) .In the fourth generation of the offspring, the open field experiment and the elevated cross maze test were carried out. Results: In the open field experiment, there was no significant difference in spontaneous activity and exploration behavior between the normal temperature control group and the cold stress group (P＞0.05). In the elevated plus maze experiment, the retention time of the open arms, the number of open arms and the distance of the male and female rats in the cold stress group were significantly higher than those in the normal temperature control group (P＜0.05). Conclusion: Prenatal maternal cold stress has no significant effect on spontaneous activity, exploration behavior and activity level of offspring, but the offspring have obvious abnormal behaviors with reduced anxiety behavior.

Key words: rat, prenatal cold stress, offspring, behavior

LI Wen-jie, YANG Huan-min, LIAN Shuai, XU bin, WANG Li-peng, ZANG Shu-cheng, YUAN Jian-bin, DING Meng-yuan. Effects of prenatal maternal cold stress on spontaneous, exploratory and anxious behaviors in offspring[J]. CJAP, 2019, 35(2): 135-139.

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