Developmental fluoxetine exposure facilitates sexual behavior in female offspring
Ine Rayen1, Harry W M Steinbusch, Thierry D Charlier
1School for Mental Health and Neuroscience, Department of Neuroscience, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Rationale:
A growing number of infants are being exposed to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) medications during the perinatal period. SSRIs target the serotoninergic system and are a popular treatment for maternal mood disorders. Serotonin itself plays a key role in the sexual differentiation through its role in the development of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, and previous research has shown that developmental SSRI exposure has an effect on sexual behavior in male offspring.
Objectives:
Our aim was to determine the role of developmental exposure to a popular SSRI medication, fluoxetine, on sexual differentiation of the brain and behavior in female offspring using a rodent model of maternal adversity.
Methods:
Stressed and non-stressed Sprague-Dawley rat dams were chronically treated with either fluoxetine (5 mg/kg/day) or vehicle beginning on postnatal day 1. Four groups of female offspring were used: (1) control + vehicle, (2) control + fluoxetine, (3) prenatal stress + vehicle, and (4) prenatal stress + fluoxetine.
Results:
Primary results show that in adult female offspring, developmental fluoxetine exposure facilitates proceptive and receptive behaviors with a significant increase in the number of proceptive behaviors, a significant increase in the lordosis quotient, and a significant decrease in the rejection quotient.
Conclusions:
This research contributes in the understanding of the long-term impact developmental fluoxetine exposure on the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) system in adult female offspring.
