Endocrine Abstracts

Around birth, beginning in mid-pregnancy and lasting until lactation, dramatic neuroendocrine and behavioural adaptations occur in the maternal organism as, for example, the reactivity of the HPA axis to various stressors is blunted. Further, state anxiety, the emotional evaluation of a stressorand the level of calmness are altered at this time. In addition to an attenuated feed forward drive to the HPA axis, reduced activity of the CRH system, and lack of excitatory inputs to...