COMPARISON OF LUTEINIZING HORMONE LEVELS IN CHRONIC STRESS RAT MODEL AND ITS OFFSPRING

Background: Stress has become a part of our everyday life. Stress has an adverse effect on all systems of the body including the reproductive system. This project was designed to study the transgenerational effect of stress on rats by comparing the reproductive hormones. Objective: To find the effect of chronic alternating stress on parents and offsprings by comparing Corticosterone and Luteinizing Hormone levels. Methods: This was an experimental case-control trial. We took 136 healthy wistar albino rats. They were 11 weeks old and we assayed them at the start of the experiment. Then we divided them into two groups. The case parents and the control parents. To the case parents we gave 3 weeks of chronic alternating stress and to the controls we did not give any stress. The genders were kept separate before and during the stress after which they were allowed to mate. The offsprings of case and control parents were divided into groups. One group was assayed at 5 weeks before any stress. One group was given early life stress starting at 5 weeks and ending at 8 weeks. One group was given late-life stress starting at 11 weeks and ending at 14 weeks. One group received both early and late life stress. Then there were controls that did not receive any stress. The protocol of stress was the same. We conducted behavioral tests and assayed for hormones. Results: The early life stressed rats had increased Corticosterone levels (p-value <0.05) while the Luteinizing Hormone levels were decreased in the early life stressed rats. Conclusion: The rats given both early and late life stress had somewhat better results than the rats given only early life stress.