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Early handling can attenuate adverse effects of fetal ethanol exposure
1Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Insights
Early handling improved weight gain and attenuated some adverse physiological effects of prenatal ethanol exposure in rats. However, handling did not fully reverse all negative impacts on growth and stress responses.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Endocrinology
Background:
- Prenatal ethanol exposure can lead to adverse developmental outcomes.
- Early life stress and handling can significantly impact physiological and hormonal development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effects of early handling on rats exposed to ethanol prenatally.
- To assess the modulation of physiological and hormonal responses by early handling.
Main Methods:
- Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed to ethanol (E), pair-fed (PF), or control (C) conditions prenatally.
- Offspring were either handled (H) or nonhandled (NH) during the preweaning period.
- Physiological responses (weight gain, hypothermia, corticosterone levels) were measured in adulthood following ethanol challenges and stress tests.
Main Results:
- Early handling normalized preweaning weight gain in ethanol-exposed offspring.
- Handling reduced ethanol-induced hypothermia in males and accelerated temperature recovery in control females.
- While corticosterone responses to ethanol challenges showed no group differences, handling increased overall corticosterone levels and attenuated stress-induced responses in females.
Conclusions:
- Early handling can partially mitigate some adverse effects of prenatal ethanol exposure on offspring growth and physiological reactivity.
- The benefits of early handling are sex-specific and do not fully reverse all developmental deficits.
- Further research is needed to understand the long-term implications and mechanisms of early handling in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder models.
Abstract:
The effects of early handling on physiological and hormonal responses of rats exposed to ethanol prenatally were studied. Male and female Sprague-Dawley rats from prenatal ethanol (E), pair-fed (PF), and ad lib-fed control (C) prenatal treatment groups were either handled (H) or nonhandled (NH) during the preweaning period and tested in adulthood. Early handling eliminated the deficit in preweaning weight gain observed in E compared to PF and C offspring. In adulthood, early handling eliminated the increased hypothermia observed in E and PF compared to C males following an ethanol challenge (2.0 g/kg, IP). In addition, H males displayed marginally less hypothermia overall than NH males. In contrast, handling accelerated the return to preinjection temperature in PF and C females but had no effect on E females. There were no significant differences among E, PF, and C rats in corticosterone (CORT) responses to ethanol challenge (1.5 g/kg, IP), but both males (marginally) and females in the H condition displayed higher CORT levels overall than NH rats. Early handling also eliminated the increased peak CORT response to restraint stress in E compared to C females, but did not affect the more prolonged elevation of CORT in E compared to PF and C females. There were no differences among E, PF, and C females in hippocampal type I and type II glucocorticoid receptor density or affinity. However, binding affinity of type II receptors was slightly but significantly increased in H compared to NH females. Together, these data indicate that early handling may modulate or attenuate some, but not all, of the adverse effects of fetal ethanol exposure on offspring growth and physiological responsiveness.