The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Lab for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 625014, China.
Key Laboratory of Animal Models and Human Disease Mechanisms of Chinese Academy of Sciences & Yunnan Province, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Kunming, Yunnan 650223, China.
Neuroscience. 2018 Aug 1;384:14-20. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2018.05.020. Epub 2018 May 23.
Maternal deprivation (MD) in rhesus monkeys has been demonstrated to be an effective model to mimic early adversity in humans because of the close phylogenetic similarity affinity. Although behavioral and hormonal abnormalities have been observed in MD monkeys, the neurobiological underpinning of the long-term deleterious effect of MD on monkeys is still unclear. In this study, we assessed emotional changes and socio-behavioral abnormalities induced by long-term MD and assessed structural alterations of gray matter volume (GMV) and white matter integrity (WMI) in 15 MD rhesus monkeys and in 15 age-, gender-matched normal controls (NC) using voxel-based morphology and voxel-based analysis methods. We found increased stereotypical behavioral durations and decreased social grooming durations in MD monkeys. Reduced GMV in the primary visual cortex (V1) and increased fractional anisotropy (FA) in the left posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) was also found in MD monkeys. Moreover, the mean FA values in pSTS showed positive correlation with the stereotypical behavioral durations in MD monkeys and negative correlation with social grooming durations in NC monkeys. Our findings indicated that the deleterious effects of MD on rhesus monkeys resulted in structural abnormalities in the visual cortex and premature myelination in the pSTS. These findings provide new insights into understanding the impact of maternal deprivation on the neurological basis of brain development.
恒河猴的母婴分离（MD）已被证明是模拟人类早期逆境的有效模型，因为其具有密切的进化亲缘关系。尽管 MD 猴子表现出行为和激素异常，但 MD 对猴子的长期有害影响的神经生物学基础仍不清楚。在这项研究中，我们使用基于体素的形态学和基于体素的分析方法，评估了长期 MD 引起的情绪变化和社交行为异常，并评估了 15 只 MD 恒河猴和 15 只年龄、性别匹配的正常对照组（NC）的灰质体积（GMV）和白质完整性（WMI）的结构改变。我们发现 MD 猴子的刻板行为持续时间增加，社交梳理持续时间减少。MD 猴子的初级视觉皮层（V1）的 GMV 减少，左后上颞叶沟（pSTS）的各向异性分数（FA）增加。此外，pSTS 中的平均 FA 值与 MD 猴子的刻板行为持续时间呈正相关，与 NC 猴子的社交梳理持续时间呈负相关。我们的发现表明，MD 对恒河猴的有害影响导致了视觉皮层的结构异常和 pSTS 中过早髓鞘形成。这些发现为理解母婴分离对大脑发育神经基础的影响提供了新的见解。
