Aims: 

Hypoxia is one of the most widespread pathologies during pregnancy that leads to different dysfunctions in postnatal period of offspring's life. We investigated whether intermittent normobaric hypoxia modelled during intrauterine development (period of early organogenesis) influences on the level of brain GABA-ergic system components in postpubertal rats.

Methods: 

The white rats' females were subjected to intermittent hypobaric hypoxia on the 9^th and 10^th days of pregnancy: 5 min of hypoxia (10.5% O₂) – 5 min of normoxia, 2 hours/day. Contents of GABA and glutamate-decarboxylase were determined by fluorescent analysis while GABA-transaminase was determined by spectrophotometric analysis in the tissue of whole brain in 60 days-old rats. Males and females of offspring were investigated separately. Control groups consisted of pups, which mothers were not subjected to hypoxia during pregnancy.

Results: 

GABA-transaminase content was 21% more in experimental males than in control (p < 0.05). Content of GABA and glutamate-decarboxylase were not different from control group. At the same time females contained indistinguishable from control amounts of glutamate-decarboxylase and GABA-transaminase, but GABA content was 12% less than in control group (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: 

Antenatal intermittent hypoxia partly altered balance of components of GABA-ergic system in rat's brain. Changes were different in male and female offspring. These alterations can be markers of inhibitory processes modifications and metabolic disturbances in brain tissue caused by antenatal hypoxia.