Pregestational stress attenuated fertility rate in dams and increased seizure susceptibility in offspring.

Many studies have found that stress during pregnancy is linked to an increased incidence of epileptic behaviors and reproductive disorders. However, few works have investigated the effect of pregestational stress on seizure susceptibility in the offspring. We investigated the effect of pregestational stress on epileptic behaviors in the offspring as well as fertility rate in dams. The male and female rats were randomly divided into four groups to form a combination of control and stressed groups for each sex. The rats were subjected to predatory stress (exposed to a cat) twice per day for 50 (male) and 15 (female) consecutive days. At the end of the stress procedure, the rats were coupled as follows: both male and female control (MC-FC), male stressed/female control (MS-FC), male control/female stressed (MC-FS), and both male and female stressed (MS-FS). Then, the puppies born from these groups were counted and evaluated for pentylentetrazole (PTZ)-induced seizure. There was no significant difference between the male and female pups in each identical group in terms of litter size and epileptic behaviors, except duration of tail rigidity and duration of immobility. The total score of seizure increased in all the stressed groups, but more severely in the MS-FS group. However, the onset of the first epileptic behavior and tonic-clonic seizure significantly decreased in the stressed groups. Moreover, fertility rate significantly decreased in the stressed groups compared with the control group, but there was no significant difference in terms of litter size between the groups. These data revealed the impact of pregestational stress during spermatogenesis and oogenesis on fertility rate in dams and epileptic behaviors in the offspring.