Sex- and region-specific differences in microglia phenotype and characterization of the peripheral immune response following early-life infection in neonatal male and female rats

Publication date: Available online 24 October 2018Source: Neuroscience LettersAuthor(s): Brittany F. Osborne, Alexandra Turano, Jasmine I. Caulfield, Jaclyn M. SchwarzAbstractEarly-life infection has been shown to have profound effects on the brain and behavior across the lifespan, a phenomenon termed “early-life programming”. Indeed, many neuropsychiatric disorders begin or have their origins early in life and have been linked to early-life immune activation (e.g. autism, ADHD, and schizophrenia). Furthermore, many of these disorders show a robust sex bias, with males having a higher risk of developing early-onset neurodevelopmental disorders. The concept of early-life programming is now well established, however, it is still unclear how such effects are initiated and then maintained across time to produce such a phenomenon. To begin to address this question, we examined changes in microglia, the immune cells of the brain, and peripheral immune cells in the hours immediately following early-life infection in male and female rats. We found that males showed a significant decrease in BDNF expression and females showed a significant increase in IL-6 expression in the cerebellum following E.coli infection on postnatal day 4; however, for most cytokines examined in the brain and in the periphery we were unable to identify any sex differences in the immune response, at least at the time points examined. Instead, neonatal infection with E.coli increased the expression of a numb...
Source: Neuroscience Letters - Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research