Summary: The Effects Of Pre-Natal Stress

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Many researchers have wondered the effects of pre-natal stress on developing organisms and it’s influence on their development. This is especially important when it comes to reproduction of humans and how people can ensure that human babies will not develop conditions that would impede their own attempts of reproduction or be detrimental to their health. By studying the effects of pre-natal stress on rats, it allows scientists to gain an understanding of how environmental factors can affect their future offspring. The purpose of this study was to identify how pre-natal stress influences sexual behaviors of male rats. We conducted one study and sought to determine to what extent does pre-natal stress influences sexual behaviors of male rats by observing the number of mounts and the number of latency of male rats when they are placed in a cage with normal female rats.
Previous researchers have conducted similarly studied the effects of pre-natal stress on rats. Frye and Orecki (2002) studied how pre-natal stress altered sexual, explorative, and social behaviors of Long-Evans female rats. They conducted
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One limitation of the study is the breeds of rats being used in the study. We only used one breed of rats in our study instead of a variety of rats. Perhaps PNS affect different breeds of rats more than others. The second limitation of this study is the number of ways the mother rats were stressed because the restraining tubes and heat lamps do not fully emulate a natural environment for rats. If rats were given more environmental related stressors, it could impact the level of PNS in male offspring. The third limitation of the study is the environment of the cage that the male rats were placed in with the female rats. The presence of the university researchers could have made the rats feel more uncomfortable and less likely to attempt reproductive

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