Early Life Stress Alters Gene Expression and Cytoarchitecture in the Prefrontal Cortex Leading to Social Impairment and Increased Anxiety

Frontiers in Genetics

Shoichi Shimada¹  Stefano Berto³  Genevieve Konopka⁴  Yuta Ono⁵  Ryoko Aramaki⁵  Noriyoshi Usui⁵  Hideo Matsuzaki⁷ 

[1] Addiction Research Unit, Osaka Psychiatric Research Center, Osaka Psychiatric Medical Center, Osaka, Japan;Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Suita, Japan;Department of Neuroscience, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, United States;Department of Neuroscience, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, United States;Division of Development of Mental Functions, Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan;Global Center for Medical Engineering and Informatics, Osaka University, Suita, Japan;Life Science Innovation Center, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan;United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University, Suita, Japan;

关键词: early life stress;    social isolation;    social behavior;    anxiety;    prefrontal cortex;    transcriptome;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fgene.2021.754198

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Early life stress (ELS), such as abuse, neglect, and maltreatment, exhibits a strong impact on the brain and mental development of children. However, it is not fully understood how ELS affects social behaviors and social-associated behaviors as well as developing prefrontal cortex (PFC). In this study, we performed social isolation on weaned pre-adolescent mice until adolescence and investigated these behaviors and PFC characteristics in adolescent mice. We found the ELS induced social impairments in social novelty, social interaction, and social preference in adolescent mice. We also observed increases of anxiety-like behaviors in ELS mice. In histological analysis, we found a reduced number of neurons and an increased number of microglia in the PFC of ELS mice. To identify the gene associated with behavioral and histological features, we analyzed transcriptome in the PFC of ELS mice and identified 15 differentially expressed genes involved in transcriptional regulation, stress, and synaptic signaling. Our study demonstrates that ELS influences social behaviors, anxiety-like behaviors through cytoarchitectural and transcriptomic alterations in the PFC of adolescent mice.

【 授权许可】

Unknown