scholarly journals Got Milk? Maternal immune activation during the mid-lactational period affects nutritional milk quality and adolescent offspring sensory processing in male and female rats

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly DeRosa ◽  
Hieu Tran ◽  
Amanda C Kentner
Keyword(s):  
Animal Models ◽  
Immune Activation ◽  
Maternal Care ◽  
Life Stress ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Early Life Stress ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Maternal Immune Activation ◽  
Adolescent Offspring ◽  
And Behavior

The neonatal environment requires a high level of maternal demand in terms of both breastfeeding and other forms of maternal care. Previous studies have underscored the importance of these maternal factors on offspring development and behavior. However, their contribution as dynamic variables in animal models of early life stress are often overlooked. In the present study, we show that lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced maternal immune activation (MIA) on postnatal day (P)10 immediately elevated milk corticosterone concentrations, which recovered by P11. In contrast, both milk triglyceride and percent creamatocrit values demonstrated a prolonged decrease following inflammatory challenge. Sustained inflammatory-induced changes to the nutritional quality of milk were also evidenced by its composition of microbial communities associated with inefficient energy and lipid metabolism. Nutritional deficits in early development have been associated with metabolic dysfunction later in life. Indeed, MIA-associated changes in the nutritional profile of milk were reflected by increased adolescent offspring bodyweights. While MIA did not decrease maternal care quality, there was a significant compensatory increase in maternal licking and grooming the day that followed the inflammatory challenge. However, this did not protect against disrupted neonatal huddling or later-life alterations in sensorimotor gating and mechanical allodynia in MIA offspring. Animal models of early life stress can impact both parents and their offspring. One mechanism that can mediate the effects of such stressors is changes to maternal lactation quality which our data show can confer multifaceted and compounding effects on offspring physiology and behavior.

scholarly journals Maternal Separation Induces Sex-Specific Differences in Sensitivity to Traumatic Stress

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dayan Knox ◽  
Stephanie A. Stout-Oswald ◽  
Melissa Tan ◽  
Sophie A. George ◽  
Israel Liberzon
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Sex Differences ◽  
Animal Models ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Life Stress ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Maternal Separation ◽  
Early Life Stress ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Male Rats

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating psychiatric disorder with a high economic burden. Two risk factors for increasing the chances of developing PTSD are sex (being female) and early life stress. These risk factors suggest that early life stress-induced changes and sex differences in emotional circuits and neuroendocrinological systems lead to susceptibility to traumatic stress. Exploring mechanisms via which stress leads to specific effects can be accomplished in animal models, but reliable animal models that allow for an examination of how early life stress interacts with sex to increase susceptibility to traumatic stress is lacking. To address this, we examined the effects of early life stress [using the maternal separation (MS) model] and late adolescence/early adult traumatic stress [using the single prolonged stress (SPS) model] on startle reactivity, anxiety-like behavior in the open field (OF), and basal corticosterone levels in male and female rats. Female rats exposed to MS and SPS (MS/SPS) showed enhanced startle reactivity relative to MS/control female rats. Enhanced startle reactivity was not observed in MS/SPS male rats. Instead, non-maternally separated male rats that were exposed to SPS showed enhanced startle reactivity relative to controls. Female rats had enhanced locomotor activity in the OF and higher basal corticosterone levels in comparison to males, but measures in the OF and basal corticosterone were not affected by MS or SPS. Overall the results suggest that the combined MS and SPS models can be used to explore how changes in maternal care during infancy lead to sex differences in sensitivity to the effects of traumatic stress as adolescents and adults.

scholarly journals Animal Models and Their Contribution to Our Understanding of the Relationship Between Environments, Epigenetic Modifications, and Behavior

Genes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Ledo Husby Phillips ◽  
Tania L. Roth
Keyword(s):  
Animal Models ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Life Stress ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Early Life Stress ◽  
Human Biology ◽  
Environmental Toxicants ◽  
Immune Challenges ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Relationship

The use of non-human animals in research is a longstanding practice to help us understand and improve human biology and health. Animal models allow researchers, for example, to carefully manipulate environmental factors in order to understand how they contribute to development, behavior, and health. In the field of behavioral epigenetics such approaches have contributed novel findings of how the environment physically interacts with our genes, leading to changes in behavior and health. This review highlights some of this research, focused on prenatal immune challenges, environmental toxicants, diet, and early-life stress. In conjunction, we also discuss why animal models were integral to these discoveries and the translational relevance of these discoveries.

scholarly journals Early-Life Stress Modulates Gut Microbiota and Peripheral and Central Inflammation in a Sex-Dependent Manner

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 1899 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hae Jeong Park ◽  
Sang A. Kim ◽  
Won Sub Kang ◽  
Jong Woo Kim
Keyword(s):  
Gut Microbiota ◽  
Relative Abundance ◽  
Life Stress ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Maternal Separation ◽  
Early Life Stress ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Rrna Gene ◽  
Dependent Manner ◽  
Male And Female Rats

Recent studies have reported that changes in gut microbiota composition could induce neuropsychiatric problems. In this study, we investigated alterations in gut microbiota induced by early-life stress (ELS) in rats subjected to maternal separation (MS; 6 h a day, postnatal days (PNDs) 1–21), along with changes in inflammatory cytokines and tryptophan-kynurenine (TRP-KYN) metabolism, and assessed the differences between sexes. High-throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene showed that the relative abundance of the Bacteroides genus was increased and that of the Lachnospiraceae family was decreased in the feces of MS rats of both sexes (PND 56). By comparison, MS increased the relative abundance of the Streptococcus genus and decreased that of the Staphylococcus genus only in males, whereas the abundance of the Sporobacter genus was enhanced and that of the Mucispirillum genus was reduced by MS only in females. In addition, the levels of proinflammatory cytokines were increased in the colons (IFN-γ and IL-6) and sera (IL-1β) of the male MS rats, together with the elevation of the KYN/TRP ratio in the sera, but not in females. In the hippocampus, MS elevated the level of IL-1β and the KYN/TRP ratio in both male and female rats. These results indicate that MS induces peripheral and central inflammation and TRP-KYN metabolism in a sex-dependent manner, together with sex-specific changes in gut microbes.

The effects of early‐life stress on dopamine system function in adolescent female rats

2017 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iwona Majcher‐Maślanka ◽  
Anna Solarz ◽  
Krzysztof Wędzony ◽  
Agnieszka Chocyk
Keyword(s):  
Life Stress ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Early Life Stress ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Adolescent Female ◽  
System Function ◽  
Dopamine System

scholarly journals Sex-Specific Effects of Early Life Stress on Brain Mitochondrial Function, Monoamine Levels and Neuroinflammation

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Héctor González-Pardo ◽  
Jorge L. Arias ◽  
Eneritz Gómez-Lázaro ◽  
Isabel López Taboada ◽  
Nélida M. Conejo
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Mitochondrial Function ◽  
Life Stress ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Early Life Stress ◽  
Female Rats ◽  
Dopamine Turnover ◽  
Mitochondrial Energy Metabolism ◽  
Brain Mitochondrial Function

Sex differences have been reported in the susceptibility to early life stress and its neurobiological correlates in humans and experimental animals. However, most of the current research with animal models of early stress has been performed mainly in males. In the present study, prolonged maternal separation (MS) paradigm was applied as an animal model to resemble the effects of adverse early experiences in male and female rats. Regional brain mitochondrial function, monoaminergic activity, and neuroinflammation were evaluated as adults. Mitochondrial energy metabolism was greatly decreased in MS females as compared with MS males in the prefrontal cortex, dorsal hippocampus, and the nucleus accumbens shell. In addition, MS males had lower serotonin levels and increased serotonin turnover in the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus. However, MS females showed increased dopamine turnover in the prefrontal cortex and increased norepinephrine turnover in the striatum, but decreased dopamine turnover in the hippocampus. Sex differences were also found for pro-inflammatory cytokine levels, with increased levels of TNF-α and IL-6 in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of MS males, and increased IL-6 levels in the striatum of MS females. These results evidence the complex sex- and brain region-specific long-term consequences of early life stress.

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