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Social and Cognitive Impairments in Rat Offspring after Ultrasound-Induced Prenatal Stress

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Bulletin of Experimental Biology and Medicine Aims and scope

We studied the possibility of developing an autism model based on chronic prenatal psychological stress caused by variable frequency ultrasound 20-45 kHz. The offspring of female rats stressed during pregnancy demonstrated reduced time of social contacts in the social interaction test, increased anxiety in the open-field test, and memory impairment in the Morris water maze test in comparison with the control (intact) rat offspring. We also found a reducing trend in the BDNF gene expression in the amygdala in males of the experimental group. The results showed the possibility of developing the animal autism model based on prenatal stress.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of the Fundamental and Applied Neurobiology, V. P. Serbsky National Medical Research Centre of Psychiatry and Narcology, Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia

    O. V. Abramova, E. A. Zubkov, Ya. A. Zorkina, A. Yu. Morozova, K. A. Pavlov & V. P. Chekhonin

  2. N. I. Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University, Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia

    V. P. Chekhonin

Authors
  1. O. V. Abramova
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  2. E. A. Zubkov
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  3. Ya. A. Zorkina
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  4. A. Yu. Morozova
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  5. K. A. Pavlov
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  6. V. P. Chekhonin
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Correspondence to O. V. Abramova.

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Translated from Byulleten’ Eksperimental’noi Biologii i Meditsiny, Vol. 168, No. 12, pp. 687-691, December, 2019

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Abramova, O.V., Zubkov, E.A., Zorkina, Y.A. et al. Social and Cognitive Impairments in Rat Offspring after Ultrasound-Induced Prenatal Stress. Bull Exp Biol Med 168, 730–733 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10517-020-04790-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10517-020-04790-0

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