a study by garcía-cáceres et al. showed that prenatal stress decreases cell turnover and proliferation in the hypothalamus of adult rats, which reduces structural plasticity and reduces the response to stress in adulthood. this study also showed that when prenatally stressed rats were stressed in adulthood the females showed an increase in corticotropin-releasing hormone suggesting it to be an up-regulation in the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis. males showed no elevation of corticosterone levels. increase in adrenocorticotropic hormone with no effect of adult stress and a decrease in the corticotropin-releasing hormone mrna in the hypothalamus showed a down-regulation. the author concludes that this makes prenatally stressed females less reactive to later life stressors than males.