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  2. Pioglitazone alleviates maternal sleep deprivation-induced cognitive deficits in male rat offspring by enhancing microglia-mediated neurogenesis

Pioglitazone alleviates maternal sleep deprivation-induced cognitive deficits in male rat offspring by enhancing microglia-mediated neurogenesis

  • Brain Behav Immun. 2020 Jul;87:568-578. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2020.02.002.
Yue Han 1 Jiutai Wang 1 Qiuying Zhao 1 Xiaofang Xie 2 Rui Song 1 Ying Xiao 1 Xixi Kang 1 Lijuan Zhang 1 Yue Zhang 1 Cheng Peng 2 Zili You 3
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 School of Life Science and Technology, Center for Informational Biology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China.
  • 2 State Key Laboratory of Southwestern Chinese Medicine Resources, School of Pharmacy, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu 611137, China.
  • 3 School of Life Science and Technology, Center for Informational Biology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610054, China. Electronic address: youzili@uestc.edu.cn.
Abstract

Maternal sleep disturbance in pregnancy causes cognitive impairments and emotional disorders in offspring. Microglia-mediated inflammatory processes contribute to prenatal stress-induced neurodevelopmental deficits. Peroxisome Proliferator-activated Receptor gamma (PPARγ) activation underlies the switching of microglial activation phenotypes, which has emerged as a pharmacological target for regulating neuroinflammatory responses in the treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. Here we investigated the effects of PPARγ-dependent microglial activation on neurogenesis and cognitive behavioral outcomes in male rat offspring exposed to maternal sleep deprivation (MSD) for 72 h from days 18-21 of pregnancy. In the Morris water maze test, male MSD rat offspring needed more time than control offspring to escape to the hidden platform and spent less time in the target quadrant when the hidden platform was removed. In MSD rat offspring, microglial density as determined by immunofluorescence was higher, microglia showed fewer and shorter processes, and neurogenesis in the hippocampus was significantly reduced. Levels of mRNA encoding pro-inflammatory markers IL-6, TNFα, and IL-1β were higher in male MSD offspring, whereas levels of anti-inflammatory markers Arg1, IL-4, and IL-10 were lower, as was PPARγ expression in the hippocampus. PPARγ activation by pioglitazone (30 mg/kg/day, i.p., 7 d) mitigated these negative effects of MSD, rescuing hippocampal neurogenesis and improving cognitive function. The PPARγ Inhibitor GW9662 (1 mg/kg/day, i.p., 7 d) eliminated the effects of pioglitazone. Conditioned medium from pioglitazone-treated microglia promoted proliferation and differentiation of neural progenitor cells. These results suggest that MSD-induced deficits in spatial learning and memory can be ameliorated through PPARγ-dependent modulation of microglial phenotypes.

Keywords

Cognition; Inflammation; Maternal sleep deprivation; Microglia; PPARγ.

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