Stress effects on anxiety in females during pregnancy and puerperium

• Grant number: 13/10808-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2013
• End date: January 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Physiological Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Telma Goncalves Carneiro Spera de Andrade
• Grantee: Rafael Cabbia
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil

Abstract

One knows that modern women, by assuming different roles nowadays, starts living different stress stimulus in their routines. Allied to this picture, they are responsible to incubate the fetus during the pregnancy period, give birth and feed its progeny. Even if there is paternal support, the anatomic, physiologic and emotional alterations resulting from each phase of the pregnancy and the puerperium required more attention from the woman. The cause to unleash the anxiety of prenatal and postnatal are probably due to many factors, since hormonal adjustments to the unique experience of the first pregnancy, comorbidity, as they can be involved with the lack of social support and prenatal and postnatal stress. Thus, based on previous researches that show pregnancy and puerperium, as sensitive periods to psychopathology indication, one asks: does the descendant separation in the puerperal period increase the progenitor anxiety? Is this anxiety empowered by the progenitors submission into chronical stress (predictable and unpredictable) during the pregnancy period? The assumption is that the separation of the descendants is decisive in progenitors previously stressed. The objective of this research is to evaluate the anxiety demonstration in female rats to different kinds of chronical stress in distinct pregnancy moments and after the separation of the descendants in puerperium. The progenitors (Wistar rats) will be separated in two large groups: control and experimental. The control group rats will remain in their grouped boxes (five animals per box). The experimental rats will be separated in to subgroups: the separation group will have one animal per box. The other subgroup, after separated, they will be submitted to a chronical stress per seven days. These manipulations will be conducted in three different steps: 1st step: stress exposure in the first pregnancy week; 2nd step: stress exposure in the second pregnancy week; 3rd step: stress exposure in the third pregnancy week. In the last exposure day, each rat will be submitted to the Elevated Plus-Maze (EPM), an anxiety animal model, due to evaluate if the procedure has changed their emotional state. The same evaluation in each end of the pregnancy week, will be applied to the control group. After the birth the progenitor will stay in a separated box with its descendants, until they get 21 days old, when they will be separated. After the separation, the rats will be evaluated again in the EPM. The data will be analyzes through the ANOVA (Two Way) and by duplicated measurement. The main to factors to be studied will be: Factor 1 - Pregnancy week (first, second and third week); Factor 2 - Groups (control, predictable chronical stress - separation, and unpredictable chronical stress) in two different conditions: during the pregnancy period and after the descendants' removal from the progenitor. There will be realized a correlation test between the results from the progenitor during the pregnancy and after the descendants separation; the main goal is to verify if the maternal anxiety enlargement, during the pregnancy, raised the puerperium anxiety, after birth. (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

DE BRITO GUZZO SOLIANI, FLAVIANE CRISTINA; CABBIA, RAFAEL; KUMPEL, VINICIUS DIAS; BATISTELA, MATHEUS FITIPALDI; ALMEIDA, AMARYLIS GARCIA; YAMAUCHI JUNIOR, LUIZ; CARNEIRO SPERA DE ANDRADE, TELMA GONCALVES. Unpredictable chronic prenatal stress and manifestation of generalized anxiety and panic in rat's offspring. PROGRESS IN NEURO-PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY & BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY, v. 85, p. 89-97, JUL 13 2018. (13/10808-5, 12/19973-6)

CRISTINA DE BRITO GUZZO, SOLIANI FLAVIANE; RAFAEL, CABBIA; FITIPALDI, BATISTELA MATHEUS; GARCIA, ALMEIDA AMARYLIS; DIAS, KUEMPEL VINICIUS; LUIZ, YAMAUCHI JUNIOR; FERNANDO, FREI; GONCALVES CARNEIRO DE SPERA, ANDRADE TELMA. Impact of chronic stressors on the anxiety profile of pregnant rats. Physiology & Behavior, v. 142, p. 137-145, APR 1 2015. (12/19973-6, 13/10808-5)

DE BRITO GUZZO SOLIANI, FLAVIANE CRISTINA; CABBIA, RAFAEL; BATISTELA, MATHEUS FITIPALDI; ALMEIDA, AMARYLIS GARCIA; KUMPEL, VINICIUS DIAS; YAMAUCHI JUNIOR, LUIZ; CARNEIRO SPERA DE ANDRADE, TELMA GONCALVES. Impact of social separation during pregnancy on the manifestation of defensive behaviors related to generalized anxiety and panic throughout offspring development. PLoS One, v. 12, n. 10, OCT 16 2017. (13/10808-5, 12/19973-6)