ArticleBiology of sex differences2012
Sexually dimorphic effects of a prenatal immune challenge on social play and vasopressin expression in juvenile rats.
Article in Biology of sex differences, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 83 citations in OpenAlex.
- A "personality test" for rats reveals subtle but distinct effects of sex and early life inflammation on brain and behavior.Behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Effects of combined prenatal exposure to air pollution and maternal stress on social behavior and oxytocin and vasopressin systems in male and female mice.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Sex differences in neuromodulatory subcortical systems and their implications for Alzheimer's disease.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Review
- Effects of combined prenatal exposure to air pollution and maternal stress on social behavior and oxytocin and vasopressin systems in male and female mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Where's my mom? Resilient maternal preference in post-weaning male and female mice within a multi-chamber social behavior task.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2025Article
- Immune Alterations in the Intrauterine Environment Shape Offspring Brain Development in a Sex-Specific Manner.Biological psychiatry · 2025Review
- Anti-angiogenic mechanisms and serotonergic dysfunction in the Rgs2 knockout model for the study of psycho-obstetric risk.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2024Article
- Prenatal allergic inflammation in rats confers sex-specific alterations to oxytocin and vasopressin innervation in social brain regions.Hormones and behavior · 2024Article
- Using Animal Models to Study the Interplay Between the Biodevelopmental Pathways Underlying Human Sexual Orientation.Archives of sexual behavior · 2023Article
- Vasopressin as Possible Treatment Option in Autism Spectrum Disorder.Biomedicines · 2023Review
- A review on the reciprocal interactions between neuroinflammatory processes and substance use and misuse, with a focus on alcohol misuse.The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse · 2023Review
- Maternal immune activation affects socio-communicative behavior in adult rats.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Sex Differences in Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Key Role for the Immune System.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2023Article
- Immune signaling in sex-specific neural and behavioral development: Adolescent opportunity.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2022Review
- Oxytocin, Vasopressin, and Social Behavior: From Neural Circuits to Clinical Opportunities.Endocrinology · 2022Review
- Reelin cells and sex-dependent synaptopathology in autism following postnatal immune activation.British journal of pharmacology · 2022Article
- Maternal allergic inflammation in rats impacts the offspring perinatal neuroimmune milieu and the development of social play, locomotor behavior, and cognitive flexibility.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2021Article
- The Effect of Maternal Immune Activation on Social Play-Induced Ultrasonic Vocalization in Rats.Brain sciences · 2021Article
- Early life stress during the neonatal period alters social play and Line1 during the juvenile stage of development.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Therapeutic efficacy of environmental enrichment on behavioral, endocrine, and synaptic alterations in an animal model of maternal immune activation.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundInfectious diseases and inflammation during pregnancy increase the offspring's risk for behavioral disorders. However, how immune stress affects neural circuitry during development is not well known. We tested whether a prenatal immune challenge interferes with the development of social play and with neural circuits implicated in social behavior.
methodsPregnant rats were given intraperitoneal injections of the bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS - 100 μg /kg) or saline on the 15th day of pregnancy. Offspring were tested for social play behaviors between postnatal days 26-40. Brains were harvested on postnatal day 45 and processed for arginine vasopressin (AVP) mRNA in situ hybridization.
resultsIn males, LPS treatment reduced the frequency of juvenile play behavior and reduced AVP mRNA expression in the medial amygdala and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis. These effects were not found in females. LPS treatment did not change AVP mRNA expression in the suprachiasmatic nucleus, paraventricular nucleus, or supraoptic nucleus of either sex, nor did it affect the sex difference in the size of the sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area.
conclusionsGiven AVP's central role in regulating social behavior, the sexually dimorphic effects of prenatal LPS treatment on male AVP mRNA expression may contribute to the sexually dimorphic effect of LPS on male social play and may, therefore, increase understanding of factors that contribute to sex differences in social psychopathology.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.