Developmental estrogen exposures and disruptions to maternal behavior and brain: Effects of ethinyl estradiol, a common positive control.

ABSTRACT: Due of its structural similarity to the endogenous estrogen 17β-estradiol (E2), the synthetic estrogen 17α-ethinyl estradiol (EE2) is widely used to study the effects of estrogenic substances on sensitive organs at multiple stages of development. Here, we investigated the effects of EE2 on maternal behavior and the maternal brain in females exposed during gestation and the perinatal period. We assessed several components of maternal behavior including nesting behavior and pup retrieval; characterized the expression of estrogen receptor (ER)α in the medial preoptic area (MPOA), a brain region critical for the display of maternal behavior; and measured expression of tyrosine hydroxylase, a marker for dopaminergic cells, in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a brain region important in materna

SUBMITTER: Catanese MC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5938171 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature