Prenatal stress leads to synaptic remodeling and excessive alcohol intake comorbid with anxiety-like behaviors in adult offspring.

Prenatal stress leads to synaptic remodeling and excessive alcohol intake comorbid with anxiety-like behaviors in adult offspring. Neuropharmacology. 2018 Jul 14;: Authors: Dong E, Guidotti A, Zhang H, Pandey SC Abstract Currently, the etiology of anxiety comorbid with alcohol use disorder (AUD) remains to be elucidated. Epidemiologic evidence suggests that individuals during their prenatal development may be especially vulnerable to the effects of environmental factors such as stress that predisposes them to psychiatric disorders including AUD later in life. To explore the cause of the comorbidity, we examined anxiety-like and alcohol drinking behaviors in adult offspring of prenatally stressed dam (referred as PRS-mice) using well-characterized paradigms-elevated plus maze (EPM), light/dark box (LDB) and two-bottle free-choice. It was found that PRS mice exhibit heightened anxiety-like behaviors and increased alcohol intake in adulthood and these behavioral deficits were associated with a significant decrease in dendritic spine density (DSD) in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) as compared with their counterparts (referred as NS). To determine the mechanisms by which PRS reduces DSD, we examined the expressions of key genes associated with synaptic plasticity, such as activity regulated cytoskeleton associated protein (Arc), spinophilin (Spn), postsynaptic density 95(Psd95), tropomyosin receptor kinase B (TrkB), protein kinase B (Akt...
Source: Neuropharmacology - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Tags: Neuropharmacology Source Type: research