Behavioral Deficits in Juveniles Mediated by Maternal Stress Hormones in Mice

Figure 3

Unpredictable stress during pregnancy results in decreased pup survival and depression-like behavior in the dams. (a) A diagram outlining the experimental design. Wild type and Gabrd^−/− dams were subjected to unpredictable stress from D14 to D21 of pregnancy and pup survival and depression-like behavior were assessed in the dams at 48 hrs postpartum. (b) Wild type and Gabrd^−/− mice subjected to unpredictable stress from D14 to D21 of pregnancy exhibit a decrease in pup survival compared to control wild type and Gabrd^−/− mice. : wild type = 12 mothers, 100 pups; wild type US = 9 mothers, 73 pups; Gabrd^−/− = 12 mothers, 84 pups; Gabrd^−/− US = 5 mothers, 36 pups; denotes using Student’s -test. Wild type and Gabrd^−/− dams subjected to unpredictable stress from D14 to D21 of pregnancy exhibit a decreased latency to immobility (c) and an increased total time spent immobile (d) in the forced swim test at 48 hrs postpartum. for each experimental group; denotes using one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparisons test.

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