Early environmental enrichment improves postnatal cognition in animals and humans. Here, we examined the effects of the prenatal acoustic environment (parental song rate) on prenatal attention in superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) embryos, the only songbird species with evidence of prenatal discrimination of maternal calls and in ovo call learning. Because both adults also sing throughout the ...

Stress and fatigue are common complaints of pregnant and postpartum women as is depression. These symptoms may be related to immunomodulation. However, few studies have examined these relationships. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among stress, fatigue, depression, and cytokines as markers of immune modulation in prenatal and postpartum women. Women completed questionnair...

BACKGROUND Alcohol binge drinking behavior is an important public health issue. Causal rodent and human associational studies show that reinforcement of prenatal androgen signaling increases alcohol consumption in adulthood. However, the effects of prenatal androgen exposure on adult binge drinking patterns have not been investigated yet. METHOD We analyzed data from 2225 participants of an o...

AIM Prenatal stress is known to adversely affect the fetal brain development and also neuronal loss. The mechanism(s) associated with prenatal stress induced developmental neurotoxicity remains obscure. Few studies point to the glutathione (GSH) antioxidant system which is an important molecular target for this toxicant. Hence the present study investigates the effect of prenata...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the prenatal detection of transposition of the great arteries (TGA), after the introduction of a Dutch screening program in 2007, as well as the effect of prenatal detection on pre- and postsurgical mortality and morbidity. METHODS In a geographical cohort study, all infants with TGA who were born between 1 January 2002 and 1 January 2012 were included. The cases were d...

Related experiments examined the effects of attenuated prenatal sensory stimulation on subsequent postnatal auditory and visual responsiveness in precocial bobwhite quail chicks {Colinus virginianus). Results revealed that denying quail embryos the prenatal vestibular and tactile stimulation provided by broodmates during incubation alters preand postnatal perceptual functioning. Chicks incubate...

The question of whether psychosocial stress during pregnancy (alone or in combination with fetal alcohol exposure) has negative consequences for offspring has not been clearly established in human studies. In this article, we present an overview of three prospective longitudinal studies. Using rhesus monkeys as subjects, a noise or hormone stressor, alone or in combination with moderate level a...

It has been well documented in a host of animal studies that the development of an individual is beset by a complex set of environmental influences during the prenatal period. Prenatal stresses, in particular, are known to significantly influence brain development and behavior in the affected fetuses 1) . Considerable experimental and clinical evidence has been collected, and appear to indicate...