Hall Mary Beth, Lemanski Elise A, Schwarz Jaclyn M
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA.
Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716, USA.
Biomolecules. 2025 Feb 27;15(3):347. doi: 10.3390/biom15030347.
Maternal immune activation (MIA)-infection with an immunogen during pregnancy-is linked to an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) in offspring. Both MIA and NDDs are associated with developmental delays in offsprings' motor behavior. Therefore, the current study examined the effects of MIA on neonatal reflex development in male and female offspring. Sprague Dawley rats were administered lipopolysaccharide (LPS; 50 μg/mL/kg, i.p.) or saline on embryonic day (E)15 of gestation. The offspring were then tested daily from postnatal day (P)3-P21 to determine their neonatal reflex abilities. The maternal care behaviors of the dam were also quantified on P1-P5, P10, and P15. We found that, regardless of sex, the E15 LPS offspring were able to forelimb grasp, cliff avoid, and right with a correct posture at an earlier postnatal age than the E15 saline offspring did. The E15 LPS offspring also showed better performance of forelimb grasping, hindlimb grasping, righting with correct posture, and walking with correct posture than the E15 saline offspring did. There were no significant differences in maternal licking/grooming, arched-back nursing, non-arched-back nursing, or total nursing across the E15 groups. Overall, these findings suggest that MIA with LPS on E15 accelerates reflex development in offspring without affecting maternal care. This may be explained by the stress acceleration hypothesis, whereby early-life stress accelerates development to promote survival.
母体免疫激活（MIA）——孕期感染免疫原——与后代神经发育障碍（NDDs）风险增加有关。MIA和NDDs均与后代运动行为发育迟缓相关。因此，本研究考察了MIA对雄性和雌性后代新生儿反射发育的影响。在妊娠第15天（E15）给斯普拉格-道利大鼠腹腔注射脂多糖（LPS；50μg/mL/kg）或生理盐水。然后从出生后第3天（P3）至第21天每天对后代进行测试，以确定其新生儿反射能力。在P1 - P5、P10和P15对母鼠的母性护理行为也进行了量化。我们发现，无论性别，E15 LPS组后代比E15生理盐水组后代在出生后更早的年龄就能进行前肢抓握、悬崖回避，并以正确姿势翻身。E15 LPS组后代在前肢抓握、后肢抓握、以正确姿势翻身和以正确姿势行走方面的表现也优于E15生理盐水组后代。E15各组之间在母鼠舔舐/梳理、弓背哺乳、非弓背哺乳或总哺乳方面没有显著差异。总体而言，这些发现表明，E15时用LPS进行MIA可加速后代的反射发育，而不影响母性护理。这可能由应激加速假说解释，即早期生活应激加速发育以促进生存。
