Alleviating Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Stress: A Chinese Medicine Approach in Neonatal Rats

Figure 1

The experimental timeline. On the day of birth (postnatal day 0 (P0)), male rats were randomly assigned to groups; NICU-related stressors and CMT intervention were administered from P0 to P7. Then, all rats were left undisturbed until weaning at P21. The CMT group received environmental enrichment from P21 to P49. Blood samples and ELISA to assess serum corticosterone levels were performed on P0, P8, P24, P49, and P87. On P24-P35 and P87-P98, rats underwent the open field (OF), elevated plus maze (EPM), sucrose preference, and Morris water maze (MWM) tests. Body weight was measured every day during the neonatal period from P0 to P7 and weekly thereafter.