Effects of prenatal stress on free-radical lipid and protein oxidation and superoxide dismutase activity in cerebral cortex neurons and neuroglia in the rat brain.

The processes of free-radical oxidation of proteins and lipids and superoxide dismutase activity were studied in neurons and neuroglia of the cerebral cortex in rats during ontogenesis and after prenatal stress. Regardless of age, normal animals were found to have higher levels of free-radical lipid and protein oxidation in neurons than in glia. This same pattern was also observed in relation to superoxide dismutase. After prenatal stress, the level of free-radical lipid oxidation decreased in 20-day-old rats in both neurons and neuroglia. Conversely, the level of free-radical protein oxidation products increased only in neurons, by an average factor of four. Superoxide dismutase activity in animals subjected to prenatal stress decreased significantly in neurons but did not change in neuroglia.