Fetal and neonatal origins of altered brain development

Rees, Sandra; Inder, Terrie E.

doi:10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2005.07.004

Cited by 275 publications

(220 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…6 Our findings therefore suggest that the critical period of impaired fetal growth for our outcomes occurred in late pregnancy, which is when the organs and tissues undergo critical periods of development. 21 Normal brain development in this critical period of late pregnancy involves both development of GM and WM. However, the formation of WM and myelination starts in the second half of pregnancy and oligodendrocyte differentiation occurs during the last gestational weeks of prenatal development and therefore is severely compromised in several conditions affecting fetal nutrition in this critical period.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Birth Size and Brain Function 75 Years Later

et al. 2014

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BACKGROUND: There are several lines of evidence pointing to fetal and other early origins of diseases of the aging brain, but there are no data directly addressing the hypotheses in an older population. We investigated the association of fetal size to late-age measures of brain structure and function in a large cohort of older men and women and explored the modifying effect of education on these associations. METHODS: Within the AGES (Age Gene/Environment Susceptibility)-Reykjavik population-based cohort (born between 1907 and 1935), archived birth records were abstracted for 1254 men and women who ∼75 years later underwent an examination that included brain MRI and extensive cognitive assessment. RESULTS: Adjustment for intracranial volume, demographic and medical history characteristics, and lower Ponderal index at birth (per kg/m3), an indicator of third-trimester fetal wasting, was significantly associated with smaller volumes of total brain and white matter; βs (95% confidence intervals) were −1.0 (−1.9 to −0.0) and −0.5 (−1.0 to −0.0) mL. Furthermore, lower Ponderal index was associated with slower processing speed and reduced executive functioning but only in those with low education (β [95% confidence interval]: −0.136 [−0.235 to −0.036] and −0.077 [−0.153 to −0.001]). CONCLUSIONS: This first study of its kind provides clinical measures suggesting that smaller birth size, as an indicator of a suboptimal intrauterine environment, is associated with late-life alterations in brain tissue volume and function. In addition, it shows that the effects of a suboptimal intrauterine environment on late-life cognitive function were present only in those with lower educational levels.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Birth Size and Brain Function 75 Years Later

et al. 2014

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“…Studies such as these are essential given the necessity for surgical procedures in early life. This is especially critical for premature human infants who are often compromised by severe conditions such as immature heart and lung status (Andrews et al, 2006;Bland et al, 2000;D'Angio and Maniscalco, 2004;Inder et al, 2005;Rees and Inder, 2005). While surgical procedures cannot be avoided, care needs to be taken with the choice of anesthesia.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From these data, it has been proposed that the developmental stage of the newborn rat is equivalent to the premature human infant. However, a critical caveat is that prematurity in human infants is often associated with altered or traumatic developmental events: transient decreases in thyroid hormone levels, high blood pressure, umbilical cord compression, seizures, hypoxia-ischemia, that do not occur following normal rodent birth McQuillen and Ferriero, 2005;Nuñez et al, 2003a;Rees and Inder, 2005;Yager et al, 2005). Therefore, while newborn rats share developmental equivalence with premature humans, they do not reflect a complete model of human prematurity.…”

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confidence: 99%

Response to neonatal anesthesia: Effect of sex on anatomical and behavioral outcome

2008

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Numerous studies have documented the consequences of exposure to anesthesia in models of term and post-term infants, evaluating the incidence of cell loss, physiological alterations and cognitive dysfunction. However, surprisingly few studies have investigated the effect of anesthetic exposure on outcomes in newborn rodents, the developmental equivalent of premature human infants. This is critical given that one out of every eight babies born in the United States is premature, with an increased prevalence of surgical procedures required in these individuals. Also, no studies have investigated if the genetic sex of the individual influences the response to neonatal anesthesia. Using the newborn rat as the developmental equivalent of the premature human, we documented the effect of a single bout of exposure to either the inhalant isoflurane or the injectable barbiturate phenobarbital on hippocampal anatomy, hippocampal dependent behavioral performance and normal developmental endpoints in male and female rats. While both forms of anesthesia led to significant decrements in cognitive abilities, along with a significant reduction in volume and neuron number in the hippocampus in adulthood, the decrements were significantly greater in males than in females. Interestingly, the deleterious effects of anesthesia were manifest on developmental measures including surface righting and forelimb grasp, but were not evident on basic physiological parameters including body weight or suckling. These findings point to the hazardous effects of exposure to anesthesia on the developing central nervous system and the particular sensitivity of males to deficits.

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“…There is growing clinical and experimental evidence for maternal and fetal infection acting via systemic and neuroinflammation to cause fetal brain injury or contributing to in utero asphyxial brain injury with consequences for postnatal health (Rees and Inder, 2005;Murthy and Kennea, 2007;Hagberg et al, 2002;Wang et al, 2006;Gotsch et al, 2007;Fahey, 2008). However, little is known about the roles of brain's glial cells, microglia and astrocytes, in the initiation and maintenance of neuroinflammation in utero and postnatally.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

RNAseq profiling of primary microglia and astrocyte cultures in near-term ovine fetus: A glial in vivo-in vitro multi-hit paradigm in large mammalian brain

Côrtes

Cao

Liu

et al. 2017

Journal of Neuroscience Methods

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Background-The chronically instrumented fetal sheep is a widely used animal model to study fetal brain development in health and disease, but no methods exist yet to interrogate dedicated brain cell populations to identify their molecular and genomic phenotype. For example, the molecular mechanisms whereby microglia or astrocytes contribute to inflammation in the brain remain incompletely understood.New method-Here we present a protocol to derive primary pure microglial or astrocyte cultures from near-term fetal sheep brain, after the animals have been chronically instrumented and studied in vivo. Next, we present the implementation of whole transcriptome sequencing (RNAseq) pipeline to deeper elucidate the phenotype of such primary sheep brain glial cultures. Results-We CIHR Author Manuscript CIHR Author Manuscript CIHR Author ManuscriptConclusions-The presented approach opens new possibilities for testing not only supernatant protein levels in response to an in vitro challenge, but also to evaluate changes in the transcriptome of glial cells derived from a large mammalian brain bearing high resemblance to the human brain. Moreover, the presented approach lends itself to modeling the complex multi-hit paradigms of antenatal and perinatal cerebral insults in vivo and in vitro.

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Fetal and neonatal origins of altered brain development

Cited by 275 publications

References 22 publications

Birth Size and Brain Function 75 Years Later

Birth Size and Brain Function 75 Years Later

Response to neonatal anesthesia: Effect of sex on anatomical and behavioral outcome

RNAseq profiling of primary microglia and astrocyte cultures in near-term ovine fetus: A glial in vivo-in vitro multi-hit paradigm in large mammalian brain

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