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Papers of the Week


Papers: 21 May 2022 - 27 May 2022

RESEARCH TYPE:
Psychology


2022 Jul


Dev Psychobiol


64


5

Maternal immune activation accelerates puberty initiation and alters mechanical allodynia in male and female C57BL6/J mice.

Authors

Zhao X, Erickson M, Mohammed R, Kentner AC
Dev Psychobiol. 2022 Jul; 64(5):e22278.
PMID: 35603415.

Abstract

The mechanisms that link maternal immune activation (MIA) with the onset of neurodevelopmental disorders remain largely unclear. Accelerated puberty is also associated with a heightened risk for psychopathology in later life, but there is a dearth of evidence on the impacts of maternal infection on pubertal timing. We examined the effects of MIA on reproductive development, mechanical allodynia, and sensorimotor gating in juvenile, adolescent, and adult male and female mice. Moreover, we investigated hypothalamic neural markers associated with the reproductive and stress axes. Finally, we tested the mitigating effects of environmental enrichment (EE), which has clinical relevancy in human rehabilitation settings. Our results show that administration of polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (poly(I:C)) on gestational day 12.5 led to early preputial separation, vaginal openings, and age of first estrus in offspring. MIA exposure altered pain sensitivity across development and modestly altered prepulse inhibition. The downregulation of Nr3c1 and Oprk mRNA in the hypothalamus of juvenile mice suggests that MIA's effects may be mediated through disruption of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity. In contrast, life-long housing with EE rescued many of these MIA-induced consequences. Overall, our findings suggest that accelerated puberty may be associated with the deleterious effects of infection during pregnancy and the onset of psychopathology.