Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Mar 1.
Published in final edited form as: Epilepsia. 2011 Dec 22;53(3):e46–e49. doi: 10.1111/j.1528-1167.2011.03357.x

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Prenatal restraint stress reveals antispasm effects of chronic, but not acute pretreatment with ACTH (mean ± SEM). (A) Acute pre-treatment with ACTH (0.1 mg/kg, i.p., 1 h prior to NMDA challenge) did not affect latency to onset of spasms irrespective of whether the rats were prenatally exposed to stress (n-saline = 6; n-ACTH = 4) or handled controls (n-saline = 6; n-ACTH = 6). Note that the difference between prenatally stressed and handled pups was confirmed (*p = 0.0075). There was no interaction between prenatal and postnatal factors. (B) There was no effect of acute pretreatment with 0.1 mg/kg ACTH, i.p., on the number of spasms. Yet, the previously demonstrated difference between prenatal stressed and handled groups reappeared (*p = 0.0137) without an interaction between prenatal and postnatal factors. (C) Acute pretreatment with 0.3 mg/kg ACTH, s.c. (n = 6) in prenatally stressed rats 1 h prior to NMDA challenge had no significant effects on the latency to onset of spasms compared to saline pretreatment (n = 5; p = 0.422), although this ACTH dose was effective in the chronic pretreatment paradigm (see E and F). (D) After prenatal stress, there was no effect of ACTH pretreatment with 0.3 mg/kg dose on the number of spasms compared to saline-injected rats (p = 0.650). (E) Chronic pretreatment with ACTH (3 days, three doses of 0.3 mg/kg s.c. per day) on P12–P14 (n = 8) significantly delayed onset of spasms compared to controls injected with vehicle at the same times (n = 6; *p = 0.0006) in prenatally stressed rats. (F) Similarly, chronic ACTH pretreatment significantly decreased the number of spasms compared to vehicle injections (*p = 0.003) in prenatally stressed rats. (G) Infant, prenatally stressed, rats randomized on P12 to either ACTH or vehicle groups gained body weight equally between P1 and P12 (p = 0.9006). (H) However, once the chronic ACTH treatment had been initiated on P12 in prenatally stressed rats, the ACTH-treated rats lagged in their body weight gains between P12 and P15 compared to vehicle-injected controls (*p = 0.0035).

Epilepsia ©ILAE