Effects of Prenatal Maternal Handling and Differential Housing on Offspring Emotionality, Plasma Corticosterone Levels, and Susceptibility to Gastric Erosions

Abstract

Offspring of rats that were either unmanipulated or handled throughout pregnancy were fostered to unmanipulated females at birth and group-housed at weaning. Behavioral responses to a reaction to handling test indicated that prenatally stimulated animals were somewhat less emotional than controls. Also, there was an attenuated plasma corticosterone response to this test in the prenatally handled females. Among females, prenatally manipulated animals were more susceptible to immobilization-produced gastric erosions. In a 2nd experiment, prenatally handled and control rats, reared by unmanipulated females, were housed by groups or individually at weaning. The basic findings of Experiment 1 were confirmed and an interaction between prenatal treatment and housing was observed, the difference between prenatally handled and control animals being most pronounced among the individually housed populations.