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Updated: Aug 1, 2026

The c-FOS Protein Immunohistological Detection: A Useful Tool As a Marker of Central Pathways Involved in Specific Physiological Responses In Vivo and Ex Vivo
05:44

The c-FOS Protein Immunohistological Detection: A Useful Tool As a Marker of Central Pathways Involved in Specific Physiological Responses In Vivo and Ex Vivo

Published on: April 25, 2016

Materno-fetal coordination of stress-induced Fos expression in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus during

T Fujioka1, A Fujioka, H Endoh

  • 1Department of Neuroscience, Yamaguchi University School of Medicine, Ube, Yamaguchi 755-8505, Japan.

Neuroscience
|April 18, 2003
PubMed

This study investigates whether maternal stress during pregnancy induces maternal and fetal hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) neuronal activation and the effects of maternal stress on fetal hypothalamic and PVN brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression. Pregnant rats were exposed to three types of maternal stress with varying severity (restraint, forced walking and immobilization) for 30 min on gestational day 21. Severity of stress was assessed by measurement of maternal plasma corticosterone 30 min following the stimulus. Maternal plasma corticosterone increased in each stress response group (immobilization>forced walking>restraint). Further, the expression of Fos protein, a marker of neuronal activation, increased in the fetal and maternal PVN in direct relation to the severity of stress treatments. Forced walking and immobilized stress, but not restraint stress, significantly increased BDNF expression in the fetal hypothalamus.These findings suggest that the fetal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) response following maternal stress mirrors maternal HPA activation. In addition, BDNF may play a role in protecting fetal brain neurons from damage caused by severe stress.

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