Environmental factors in early life are clearly established risk factors for cardiovascular disease in later life. Most studies have focused on nutritional programming and analysed basal cardiovascular parameters rather than responses. In the present study we have investigated whether prenatal stress has long-term effects on cardiovascular responses in adult offspring. Female pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to stress three times daily from day 15 to day 21 of gestation. Litters from stressed and control females were cross-fostered at birth to control for mothering effects. When the offspring were 6 months old, blood pressure was measured in the conscious rats through implanted catheters at rest, during restraint stress and during recovery. Basal haemodynamic parameters were similar in the different groups but the pattern of cardiovascular responses during stress and recovery differed markedly between prenatally stressed (PS) and control animals. PS rats had higher and longer-lasting systolic arterial pressure elevations to restraint stress than control animals. They also showed elevated systolic and diastolic blood pressure values during the recovery phase. PS rats demonstrated a greater increase in blood pressure variability compared with control animals during exposure to restraint stress, and showed more prolonged heart rate responses to acute stress and delayed recovery than controls. There was no effect of prenatal stress on baroreflex regulation of heart rate. PS females showed a greater increase in systolic arterial pressure and blood pressure variability and delayed heart rate recovery following return to the home cage then did PS males. These findings demonstrate for the first time that prenatal stress can induce long-term, sex-related changes in the sensitivity of the cardiovascular system to subsequent stress.

Immobilization was followed by an increase in blood NO concentration in male and female rats. After renovascular hypertension modeling blood pressure was higher and the decrease in nitric oxide concentration was more pronounced in males than in females. The levels of nitric oxide in healthy and hypertensive females at rest and during stress were higher than in males. These specific features probably contribute to higher resistance of the cardiovascular system in females to pathological changes.

In healthy females the chronotropic effects of stress are more pronounced, while the hypertensive effects are weakened compared to males. Hemodynamic parameters in females returned to normal more rapidly than in males. Renovascular hypertension in males is more pronounced than in females and is associated with increased cardiovascular stress reactivity (in females it is associated with decreased cardiovascular stress reactivity), which increase the risk of cardiovascular complications in males.

Nonlinear dynamic methods are considered to be a potential tool for studying the complex behavior of the cardiovascular system. In the present study, interindividual and gender-related differences in cardiovascular (CV) responses to various stress stimuli were studied using conventional CV variables such as heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (BP), as well as a recently introduced criterion of system complexity, normalized entropy (E/H, where E is entropy and H is system energy). A group of healthy students (n = 270) of both genders (17-20 years of age) were subjected to noise exposure, mental arithmetic, arithmetic against noise and examination stress. Results showed that CV reactivity depended upon the kind of stress imposed and the gender of the subject. HR and BP stress-induced responses did not differ between men and women. However, men had higher absolute BP levels at baseline and during exposure to stressors. Stress-induced pressor responses lasted longer in men than in women. Changes in the complexity degree of CV signals, as assessed by E/H, were more pronounced and prolonged than those of HR and BP. Unlike the latter, E/H changed significantly in all stress situations for each subject tested and could be divided into two types of stress-induced response. These results allow one to conclude that E/H can better quantitate individual differences in CV stress reactivity in comparison with HR and BP. These findings suggest that stress-induced changes in CV functioning are more varied than can be revealed by applying conventional CV measures.

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