Prenatal development constitutes a critical time for shaping adult behaviour and may set the stage for vulnerability to disease later in life. A wealth of information from humans as well as from animal research has revealed that exposure to hostile conditions during gestation may result in a series of coordinated biological responses aimed at enhancing the probability of survival, but could also increase the susceptibility to mental illness. Prenatal stress has been linked to abnormal cognitive, behavioural and psychosocial outcomes both in animals and in humans, but the underlying molecular and physiological mechanisms remain largely unknown. In this chapter, we shall review experimental data from studies reported for rats, since more information is available for them than for other species. The major focus of the present chapter is to update and discuss data on behavioural, functional and morphological effects of prenatal stress in rats that may have counterparts in prospective and/or retrospective studies of gestational stress in humans. This work contributes to understanding the role of neuronal plasticity in the long-term effects of developmental adversity on brain function and its implications for vulnerability to disease.
Keywords: Developmental programming; Gestational stress; Glucocorticoids; Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis; Neurotrophins.