Environmental Enrichment During Gestation Improves Behavior Consequences and Synaptic Plasticity in Hippocampus of Prenatal-Stressed Offspring Rats

Overview

Journal Acta Histochem Cytochem

Specialty Biochemistry

Date 2012 Jul 26

PMID 22829709

Citations 7

Authors

Mingbo Li

Miao Wang

Siqing Ding

Changqi Li

Xuegang Luo

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Prenatal stress can result in various behavior deficits in offspring. Here we tested the effects of environmental enrichment during gestation used as a preventive strategy on the behavior deficits of prenatal-stressed offspring rats as well as the underlying structure basis. We compared the effect size of environmental enrichment during gestation on prenatal-stressed offspring to that of environmental enrichment after weaning. Our results showed that environmental enrichment during gestation partially prevented anxiety and the damage in learning and memory in prenatal-stressed offspring as evaluated by elevated plus-maze test and Morris water maze test. At the same time, environmental enrichment during gestation inhibited the decrease in spine density of CA1 and dentate gyrus neurons and preserved the expression of synaptophysin and glucocorticoid receptors (GRs) in the hippocampus of prenatal-stressed offspring. There was no significant difference in offspring behavior between 7-day environmental enrichment during gestation and 14-day offspring environmental enrichment after weaning. These data suggest that environmental enrichment during gestation effectively prevented the behavior deficits and the abnormal synapse structures in prenatal-stressed offspring, and that it can be used as an efficient preventive strategy against prenatal stresses.

Citing Articles

Maternal Immune Activation and Enriched Environments Impact B2 SINE Expression in Stress Sensitive Brain Regions of Rodent Offspring.

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Environmental Enrichment Promotes Transgenerational Programming of Uterine Inflammatory and Stress Markers Comparable to Gestational Chronic Variable Stress.

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The effect of oxytocin and an enriched environment on anxiety-like behaviour and corticosterone levels in a prenatally stressed febrile seizure rat model.

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Environmental enrichment as an intervention for adverse health outcomes of prenatal stress.

McCreary J, Metz G Environ Epigenet. 2018; 2(3):dvw013.

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Environmental Intervention as a Therapy for Adverse Programming by Ancestral Stress.

McCreary J, Erickson Z, Hao Y, Ilnytskyy Y, Kovalchuk I, Metz G Sci Rep. 2016; 6:37814.

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