Neuroplasticity Changes of Rat Brain By Musical Stimuli During Fetal Period

Objective: fetal development of the central nervous system is an important and sensitivestage which is affected by many external and internal stimuli. this study aimed to investigateeffect of musical stimuli on fetal rat brain.materials and methods: in this experimental study, twelve female wistar rats were selectedand evenly assigned to control and musical groups. the females were mated witha male rat of the same genotype. musical group was exposed to classic music with 60db power for 90 minutes twice per day from 2nd to 20th day of gestation. the control ratswere handled similar to the musical group, but were not exposed to music. before parturition,all the dams were anesthetized, and their blood samples were obtained and usedfor corticosterone (cos) measurement. they were transcardially perfused by electronmicroscope (em) fixative agent. the fetal brains were extracted intact and used for slicepreparation. horizontal slices were made for electron microscope preparation, and imageswere taken and analyzed in terms of cell density and morphological changes.results: em observation indicated significant morphological difference in cellular and intercellularspaces between the two groups. music-treated fetuses had significantly highercell density in parietal cortex and music-treated dams had lower cos level.conclusion: it was concluded that prenatal music would have a great impact on neuroplasticityof fetal rat brain, at least indirectly. although the rat fetuses cannot hear until birth, music-inducedreduction in cos blood level of dams might be the reason for neuroplasticity of fetal brain.