Prenatal Stress and Gender Differences in Hormones
Pups that underwent prenatal stress showed lower plasma testosterone when compared to the control pups. This is caused by the disruption of prenatal development which did not allow the complete masculinization of the prenatally stressed pups’ central nervous system. Particularly in the striatum of the prenatally stressed male pups showed an increase in vanilmandelic acid, dopamine, serotonin, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid which all can affect sexual behavior. The prenatally stressed male pups showed a significant latency in mounting behavior when compared to controls. When doing the radial arm maze task prenatally stressed male rats showed a greater increase in dopamine than the prenatally stressed females, which is suggested to facilitate the impairment for the males doing the maze task, but improved the female’s performance. There was also an effect on the corticosterone secretion for prenatally stressed females. Being prenatally stressed increased the anxiety response of the female rats. Yet, it had no effect on the males.
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