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High-fat-diet, pregnancy, maternal behavior, anxiety, stress, animal models
Abstract:
Maternal diet during pregnancy can impact maternal behavior as well as
the intrauterine environment, playing a critical role in programming
offspring's physiology. In a preliminary study, we found a strong
association between high-fat diet (HFD) during pregnancy and increased
cannibalistic episodes and dams' mortality during late pregnancy and
parturition. Based upon these data, we hypothesized that HFD during
pregnancy could negatively affect neuroendocrine and metabolic
regulations occurring during the final stages of pregnancy, thereby
disrupting maternal behavior. To test this hypothesis, female C57BL/6J
mice were fed HFD or control diet for 11 weeks until three days before
the expected delivery date. Basal corticosterone plasma levels and brain
levels of c-Fos were measured both before and after delivery, in
addition to leptin levels in the adipose tissue. Dam's emotional
behavior and social anxiety, in addition to locomotor activity were
assessed before parturition. Data show that HFD led to aberrant maternal
behavior, dams being characterized by behaviors related to aggression
toward an unfamiliar social stimulus in the social avoidance test, in
addition to decreased locomotor activity. Neural activity in HFD dams
was reduced in the olfactory bulbs, a crucial brain region for social
and olfactory recognition hence essential for maternal behavior.
Furthermore, HFD feeding resulted in increased circulating levels of
maternal corticosterone and decreased levels of leptin. In addition, the
activity of the protective 11 beta-dehydrogenase-2 (11 beta-HSD-2)
barrier in the placenta was decreased together with 11
beta-dehydrogenase-1 (11 beta-HSD-1) gene expression. Overall, these
data suggest that HFD acts as a stressful challenge during pregnancy,
impairing the neuroendocrine system and the neural activity of brain
regions involved in the processing of relevant olfactory stimuli, with
negative consequences on maternal physiology and behavior. (C) 2015
Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
