Intrastriatal 6-OHDA Lesion Differentially Affects DopaminergicNeurons in the Ventral Tegmental Area of Prenatally Stressed Rats

CARLOS J.BAIER; MARIA EUGENIA PALLARES; EZEQUIELA ADROVER; MARIA R KATUNAR; RITA RAISMAN-VOZARI

NEUROTOXICITY RESEARCH

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2014

1029-8428

Abstract Exposure to a variety of stressful events duringthe last week of pregnancy in rats interferes with the correctprogeny development, which in turn leads to delays inmotor development, impaired adaptation to stressful conditions,altered sexual behaviour, learning deficits, neuronaldevelopment and brain morphology. Many of thesealterations have been attributed to changes in dopamine(DA) neurotransmission and occur primarily in the mesolimbicsystem. We found that prenatally stressed offspringshowed higher levels of cells expressing tyrosine hydroxylase(TH) in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and thatthese cells were more susceptible to a neurochemical insultwith 6-hydroxy-DA (6-OHDA) in adulthood. Moreover,prenatally stressed rats presented differences in terms ofthe number and asymmetry of neuronal nitric oxide synthase-expressing cells in the VTA and nucleus accumbens,respectively. Similar to the results described for THexpressingcells, the nitrergic systems were differentiallyregulated after 6-OHDA lesion in control and prenatallystressed rats. These results indicated that prenatal stressaffects the dopaminergic and nitrergic systems in themesolimbic pathway. In addition, we propose that themesolimbic areas are more susceptible than the motor areasto a neurochemical insult during adult life.