Effects of stress, induced by immune challenge during the gestation in rats, on maternal care behaviour and on hippocampal neuronal excitability in the offsprings
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Principal Investigator: Eliyahu DremencovDuration: January 2015 – December 2017
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Annotation:There is evidence that children of women which experienced stressful conditions during the pregnancy have higher risk to develop certain brain disorders, such as depression, schizophrenia, and autism. One of the common stressors experienced by pregnant women is acute infective illness. Little is known how prenatal infection influences the functioning of offspring brain. In this study, we plan to investigate the effect of prenatal immune challenge resembling infective illness, on maternal care behaviour of laboratory rats and on hippocampal neuronal activity of their pups. The immune challenge will be induced by the administration of bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Neuronal excitability will be examined in hippocampus, the structure related todepression, schizophrenia and autism, and compared between offsprings of rats treated with LPS and control rats. The results generated by this project will provide better understanding of pathophysiology of brain disorderstriggered by prenatal stress. |
Keywords:lipopolysaccharides (LPS), prenatal stress and infection, hippocampal, animal models, primary neuronal culture, neurodevelopment, depression, schizophrenia, autism, maternal care |
Objectives:The specific aims of this project are: 1. To investigate the effect of stress induced by immune challenge in gestating rats on their maternal care behaviour. 2. To investigate the effect of stress induced by immune challenge in gestating rats on the excitability of hippocampal neurons isolated from the brains of their offsprings in the different stages of the life: shortly after the birth and in the age of one month. 3. To identify specific ion channels involved in putative changes in the excitability of hippocampal neurons. |
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