Prenatal Stress on morphological and neuroendocrine aspects of male rats progeny

PALLARES ME; GONZALEZ-CALVAR, SI; BOURGUIGNON NS; ADROVER E; KATUNAR MR; BAIER CJ; LUX-LANTOS VAR; CALANDRA RS; ANTONELLI MC

Valdivia, Chile

Congreso; 6ta. Reunion Sociedad Chilena de Neurociencia; 2010

Sociedad Chilena de Neurociencia

We have previously demonstrated that prenatal stress (PS) exerted an impairment of dopaminergic (DA) metabolism limbic brain areas specifically after puberty. In this study we evaluated hypothalamic-pituitary testicular (HPT) axis status of males exposed to PS. Stress consisted o a 3 day restrant session from day 14th of gestation to delivery. Anogenital distances and testes descent were measured at postnatal day (PND) 21. Luteinizing hormone (LH), Testosterone (T) and 5alpha Androstane.3alpha, 17 beta Diol (DIOL) serum levels at 28, 35, 45, 60 and 75 days old male progeny were determined by radioimmunoassay. Testes of 35 and 60 days old animals were processed for histological morphometric measures. PS reduced anogenital distance of PND 21 male offspring and induced a 2-day delay in the completion of testis descent, in comparison to controls. Hormones serum levels analyses revealed that PS diminished LH at PND 28 and 75 (88 and 65.6%), decreased T serum levels at 75 days old rats (58.6%), and increased DIOL levels at PND 28 and 45 (61 and 63%): Additionally, the rate of spermatogenic development was accelerated on PS rats and the mean tubular diameter was increased. However, the mean Leydig cell’s number was reduced on PS rats. Our results demonstrate that stress during gestation induces long term effects on the male progeny HPT axis. Since it was reported that gonadal hormones produce plastic changes in the brain, a disbalanced hormone milieu might be responsible of the DA metabolism impairment observed in our previous studies.