Investigation of the long term effects of chronic white noise stress on learning in radial arm maze and behaviors in forced swim test

Abstract

The long-term effects of 100 dB chronic white noise stress (WNS), exposed during prenatal and adolescent periods, on some cognitive functions and behaviors in rats were investigated. For this purpose, 40 female Sprague Dawley rats and their 60 male offspring were used. Pregnant rats were divided into Prenatal Stress (PS) and Prenatal Control (PC) groups. Noise stress was applied to PS group between the 14th and 21st days of their pregnancy, while PC rats were left undisturbed. After weaning, 60 male pups of PS dams were assigned to prenatal + chronic postnatal stress (PSCS), prenatal stress + non stress (PSN) and Control (CON) groups. During the postnatal 30th and 51st days, WNS was applied to PSCS rats, while PSN and CON groups were left undisturbed. The effects of stress on adult male offspring were investigated using 8-arm radial maze and forced swimming tests. There were no significant differences among groups for cognition and behavior tests. These results indicate that chronic 100 dB WNS does not have log-term effects on cognitive functions and depression related behaviors of adult male offspring.