Male offspring of mothers stressed during pregnancy show feminized and demasculinized patterns of sexual behavior in adulthood. This so called Prenatal Stress Syndrome has been demonstrated in rats and mice, and may provide insight into intersexed behaviors shown by humans. The several objectives of the present research program include characterizing more completely in prenatally stressed male rats various sexual (e.g. ejaculation, lordosis) and nonsexual (e.g. adolescent play) behaviors known to be organized by exposure to androgens during perinatal life. Secondly, two aspects of the potential mechanism(s) mediating this syndrome will be investigated. The first will utilize radioimmunoassay to determine whether stressed males fail to experience the surge in plasma testosterone during the first hours of birth known to occur in controls. If they do not, critical neonatal factors will have to be considered as playing a causal role in this syndrome which currently is believed to result entirely from an abnormal hormonal milieu during fetal life. The possible involvement of endogenous opiates in the mediation of the Prenatal Stress Syndrome will be assessed by injecting stressed and control mothers with the opiate receptor blocker naltrexone. If stress-induced opiate release is involved then the abnormal adult behavioral and fetal testicular enzyme pattern(s) characteristic of prenatally stressed males should be prevented by pretreating mothers with naltrexone before administering gestational stress. An additional series of studies will investigate the extent to which prepuberal social factors interact with prenatal stress to determine adult sexual behavior potentials and will probe possible physiological mechanisms by which this interaction might be achieved. Finally, an attempt will be made to extend the Prenatal Stress Syndrome to the guinea pig, a laboratory species in which, like man but unlike the rat, sexual differentiation is completed during fetal ontogeny.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD004688-20
Application #
3310326
Study Section
Biopsychology Study Section (BPO)
Project Start
1978-01-01
Project End
1991-12-31
Budget Start
1990-01-01
Budget End
1991-12-31
Support Year
20
Fiscal Year
1990
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Villanova University
Department
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
City
Villanova University
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19085
Ward, Ingeborg L; Ward, O Byron; Affuso, John D et al. (2003) Fetal testosterone surge: specific modulations induced in male rats by maternal stress and/or alcohol consumption. Horm Behav 43:531-9
Casto, Joseph M; Ward, O Byron; Bartke, Andrzej (2003) Play, copulation, anatomy, and testosterone in gonadally intact male rats prenatally exposed to flutamide. Physiol Behav 79:633-41
Ward, O Byron; Ward, Ingeborg L; Denning, John H et al. (2002) Hormonal mechanisms underlying aberrant sexual differentiation in male rats prenatally exposed to alcohol, stress, or both. Arch Sex Behav 31:9-16
Ward, O Byron; Ward, Ingeborg L; Denning, John H et al. (2002) Postparturitional testosterone surge in male offspring of rats stressed and/or fed ethanol during late pregnancy. Horm Behav 41:229-35
Ward, I L; Bennett, A L; Ward, O B et al. (1999) Androgen threshold to activate copulation differs in male rats prenatally exposed to alcohol, stress, or both factors. Horm Behav 36:129-40
Ward, I L; Romeo, R D; Denning, J H et al. (1999) Fetal alcohol exposure blocks full masculinization of the dorsolateral nucleus in rat spinal cord. Physiol Behav 66:571-5
Ward, O B; Wexler, A M; Carlucci, J R et al. (1996) Critical periods of sensitivity of sexually dimorphic spinal nuclei to prenatal testosterone exposure in female rats. Horm Behav 30:407-15
Ward, I L; Ward, O B; French, J A et al. (1996) Prenatal alcohol and stress interact to attenuate ejaculatory behavior, but not serum testosterone or LH in adult male rats. Behav Neurosci 110:1469-77
Kerchner, M; Malsbury, C W; Ward, O B et al. (1995) Sexually dimorphic areas in the rat medial amygdala: resistance to the demasculinizing effect of prenatal stress. Brain Res 672:251-60
Melniczek, J R; Ward, I L (1994) Patterns of ano-genital licking mother rats exhibit toward prenatally stressed neonates. Physiol Behav 56:457-61

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