• Neuroscience · May 2019

    Prenatal immune challenge induces behavioral deficits, neuronal remodeling, and brain nitric oxide and zing increases in the male rat offspring.

    • Guillermina Tellez-Merlo, Julio Cèsar Morales-Medina, Israel Camacho-Ábrego, Ismael Juárez-Díaz, Patricia Aguilar-Alonso, Fidel de la Cruz, Tommaso Iannitti, and Gonzalo Flores.
    • Lab. Neuropsiquiatría, Instituto de Fisiología, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, 14 Sur 6301, San Manuel, 72570, Puebla, Mexico; Departamento de Fisiología, Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biológicas, Instituto Politécnico Nacional, Ciudad de México, Mexico.
    • Neuroscience. 2019 May 15; 406: 594-605.

    AbstractSchizophrenia is a severe mental disorder with numerous etiological susceptibilities. Maternal infection is a key risk factor for schizophrenia. Prenatal lipopolysaccharide (LPS) infection stimulates cytokine production that affects brain development. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the effect of prenatal LPS injection at gestational day (GD) 14-16 on behavioral paradigms, and neuronal morphology in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), basolateral amygdala (BLA), nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and ventral hippocampus (VH) at two critical ages of development: pre-pubertal (postnatal day 35, PD35) and post-pubertal (PD60) age in male rats. We also evaluated the effects of LPS on nitric oxide (NO) and zinc (Zn) levels in seven brain areas (PFC, VH, amygdala, brainstem, striatum and dorsal hippocampus) at PD35 and PD60. LPS induced hyperlocomotion in a novel environment and reduced social contact as well as increased the levels of NO and Zn in the PFC, brainstem and amygdala as observed in other animal models of schizophrenia-related behavior. Furthermore, we found that LPS-treated rats presented post-pubertal neuronal hypertrophy in the PFC and BLA and decreased spine density in the NAcc. The neuronal morphology of neurons in the VH in LPS-treated rats remained unaltered. Interestingly, the anxiogenic-related behavior correlated with neuronal hypertrophy observed in the BLA. Our findings suggest that the behavioral and neural modifications observed in our model could be mediated by the long-lasting alterations in Zn and NO levels in the brain.Copyright © 2019 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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