Structural and functional cerebellar impairment in the progeny of preeclamptic rat mothers

Neurodevelopmental Disruptions in Children of Preeclamptic Mothers: Pathophysiological Mechanisms and Consequences

“…Lastly, Valencia-Narbona et al (2023) observed decreased expression levels of vascular endothelial growth factor in the cerebellar vermis of both sexes' offspring. Additionally, they observed an increase in phosphorylated VEGF receptor 2 at Y951 in the male offspring and a decrease in locomotor learning in the female offspring of preeclamptic mothers [91].…”

“…Despite this, an increase in VEGF has been observed in PE-F1 mice, which could occur to compensate for the reduced levels of PGF [37]. A well-established and commonly employed method for inducing PE in mothers is through the administration of NG-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) [90][91][92]. Research from our laboratory evaluated the effect of L-NAME-induced PE on offspring at an ontogenetic stage equivalent to childhood through the cerebellar expression of VEGF and two of its receptors, pY951 VEGF R2 and pY1172 VEGF R2.…”

“…From these results, it can be inferred that the locomotor alterations evidenced in our study could be mediated by the dysregulation of VEGF expression in the cerebellar vermis of both sexes of the progeny but not in the expression of VEGF receptors (in an activated state) analyzed in the present research. Therefore, future studies are necessary to continue understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in the complex pathophysiology of PE [91].…”

“…It has been reported that, during preeclamptic pregnancies, notable differences in angiogenic, vascular, neuronal, and functional brain responses exist, contingent on the fetal sex [91,[186][187][188]. In this regard, there is a discernible variation in the impact of exposure to PE based on the sex of the offspring.…”

“…Several authors have asserted that, in preeclamptic pregnancies, the inflammatory, angiogenic, and apoptotic responses, along with their cerebromorphofunctional correlates, exhibit disparities contingent upon the sex of the progeny [24,103,140,141]. Valencia-Narbona et al (2023) have established that the placenta exhibits significant sexual dimorphism, potentially contributing to the origin of the observed alterations. Moreover, their findings identified the brain as being structurally sexually dimorphic and vascularly dimorphic, as other authors have described [91,189,190].…”