Perinatal exposure to synergistic multiple stressors lead to cellular and behavioral deficits mimicking Schizophrenia like pathology (original) (raw)

Protein malnourishment and immune stress are potent perinatal stressors, encountered by children born under poor socioeconomic condition. Thus, it is necessary to investigate how such stressors synergistically contribute towards developing neurological disorders in affected individuals. Pups from Wistar females, maintained on normal (high protein:HP:20%) and low protein (LP:8%) diets were used. Single and combined exposures of Poly I:C (viral mimetic:5mg/kg body wt.) and LPS (bacterial endotoxin:0.3 mg/kg body wt.) were injected to both HP and LP pups at postnatal day (PND) 3 and 9 respectively, creating 8 groups: HP (control), HP+Poly I:C, HP+LPS, HP+Poly I:C+LPS, LP, LP+Poly I:C, LP+LPS, LP+Poly I:C+LPS (multi-hit). The effects of stressors on hippocampal cytoarchitecture and behavioral abilities were studied at PND 180. LP animals were found vulnerable to immune stressors then HP animals and symptoms like neuronal damage, spine loss, downregulation of Egr 1 and Arc proteins, glio...