Peripubertal stress following maternal immune activation sex-dependently alters depression-like behaviors in offspring

A Framework for Developing Translationally Relevant Animal Models of Stress-Induced Changes in Eating Behavior

“…In rodent models, reports of sex biases in studies of stress-related feeding behaviors are similarly heterogeneous. While some studies showed no significant sex differences in the effects of stress (38)(39)(40)(41)(42), others reported reduced intake in females during the stress paradigms (43)(44)(45)(46). As seen in humans, sex differences in responses to the type of stress incorporated in the study could confound interpretation of the results.…”

“…Combining stress exposures in two developmental periods can produce synergistic effects. For example, male mice exhibit anhedonia when exposed to stress in both gestation and adolescence, but not when the manipulation is limited to one time period (42). Of the experiments that imposed developmental stressors, 6 were gestational, 8 were early postnatal and 4 were adolescent.…”

Maternal immune activation primes deficiencies in adult hippocampal neurogenesis

“…Correspondingly, “two-hit” models could reveal crucial time periods in which boosting AHN in high-risk patients could act as a prophylactic against psychiatric disorder onset. In fact, returning to existing post-mortem hippocampal sections and transcriptomic datasets from previous datasets using either a “two-hit” MIA plus stress approach or identification of MIA-resilient and -susceptible groups ( Mueller et al, 2021 , Ranaei et al, 2020 ) could immediately answer some of the following questions. Does an individual’s capacity for AHN correlate with their susceptibility or resilience to behavioural disorder after prenatal MIA exposure?…”

“…Although we find evidence to support a link between MIA and disrupted AHN, we highlight the need for studies to directly test our hypothesis using validated animal models exposed to MIA in order to answer two key questions; First, does AHN differ between susceptible and resilient offspring? Second, does reduced AHN following MIA mediate susceptibility to a second risk exposure, such as stress ( Mueller et al, 2021 ), even in apparently MIA-resilient offspring ( Mueller et al, 2021 , Ranaei et al, 2020 , Giovanoli et al, 2013 )? Finally, we highlight that to test the relevance of such data for human pathology, there is a need for complementary studies using human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC) to understand how immune stimulation that results in MIA may impact upon AHN using a human cellular model system, which would also offers the potential to test gene * environment interactions using patient-derived material.…”

Prepubertal Stress Following Mild Maternal Immune System Activation Damages Prefrontal White MatterStructure and Related Molecules in Adult Mice Offspring

“…In brief, we conducted the stress protocol in three sections with an interval of three days, as follows: electric foot shock administered to PD30 mice; restraint stress on PD34; and a forced swim stress on PD38. The control group did not experience any prepuberty stress (Ranaei et al 2020).…”