Perinatal and adolescent protein malnutrition have dierent eects on cognition in adult mice

BALLARINI F; IGAZ LM; BERARDINO B; CANEPA ET; CHERTOFF M

Villa Carlos Paz, Cordoba

Congreso; XXXVI Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias (SAN); 2019

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias (SAN)

Exposure to environmental adversities, whether it occurs during the perinatal period, childhood, adolescence oradulthood, has an impact on brain regions involved in cognition and mental health. The eects of these adversities onbrain and behavior arise as a function of the timing and duration of the exposure and its co-occurrence with thedevelopment of specic regions (life cycle model of stress).Here we explore the behavioral phenotypes derived from two nutritional stress paradigms: a low-protein perinataldiet during gestation and lactation (E0-P21), and a low-protein diet during adolescence (p25-P56). Locomotor andexploratory activity, recognition memory and aversive memory were measured in CF-1 8-week-old mice subjected toperinatal malnutrition (LP-P) or adolescent malnutrition (LP-A), and their respective controls (NP-P and NP-A).We found a reduced exploration in LP-P and LP-A mice compared to controls, although locomotor activity was notaltered. Declarative recognition memory was impaired only in LP-P mice. Interestingly, aversive memory was not alteredin LP-P mice but resulted to be enhanced in LP-A mice. Considering the stress-inoculation theory, we hypothesized thatprotein malnutrition during adolescence represents a challenging but still moderate stressful environment, whichpromotes active coping in face of later adversity.In conclusion, our results indicate that while perinatal malnutrition impairs recognition memory, adolescentmalnutrition enhances aversive memory showing dissimilar adaptative responses.