Inflammatory pain and corticosterone response in infant rats: effect of 5-HT1A agonist buspirone prior to gestational stress.

Our researches have shown that gestational stress causes exacerbation of inflammatory pain in the offspring; the maternal 5-HT1A agonist buspirone before the stress prevents the adverse effect. The serotonergic system and hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis are closely interrelated. However, interrelations between inflammatory pain and the HPA axis during the hyporeactive period of the latter have not been studied.

Short- and long-term influences of hypoxia during early postnatal period of development on behavioral and hormonal responses in rats.

Hypoxia is a common neonatal stress that leads to essential long-lasting complications in the brain development. The aim of this study was to determine short- and long-term effects of early postnatal hypoxia (on day 7) on depression- and pain-related behaviors and the plasma corticosterone levels. The plasma corticosterone levels increased after 3-h severe hypoxia in 7-day-old rat pups (hypoxic rats) as compared to basal corticosterone in naïve pups and corticosterone levels in pups removed from the experimental chamber without hypoxia (normoxic rats).