Maternal High-fat Diet Programs Offspring Emotional Behavior in Adulthood

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Biology
• Endocrinology

Background:

• Prenatal exposure to high-fat diets (HFD) is linked to metabolic and mental health issues in offspring.
• The molecular mechanisms, particularly neuroinflammation and stress axis regulation, are not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of maternal HFD on offspring's anxiety, depression, and memory.
• To identify biomarkers in the hippocampus related to neuroinflammation and stress responses.

Main Methods:

• Female Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a control or HFD before and during gestation/lactation.
• Offspring behavior was assessed using elevated plus maze, forced swim test, novel object recognition, and open field tests.
• Hippocampal gene expression of inflammatory markers (TNF-α, MCP-1) and stress-related genes (CRHR2, KMO, KAT1) was quantified via real-time qPCR.

Main Results:

• Maternal HFD induced anxiety-like behaviors in offspring, irrespective of sex.
• Increased hippocampal mRNA levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and monocyte-chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) were observed.
• Elevated corticosteroid releasing hormone receptor 2 (CRHR2) and kynurenine monooxygenase (KMO) mRNA, with decreased kynurenine aminotransferase I (KAT1) mRNA, were found in offspring hippocampi.

Conclusions:

• Maternal HFD exposure can lead to anxiety-like behaviors in offspring.
• Hippocampal neuroinflammation and altered stress axis gene expression are potential biological mechanisms underlying these effects.