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Advanced Parental Age Impaired Fear Conditioning and Hippocampal LTD in Adult Female Rat Offspring

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Abstract

Advanced maternal or paternal age is associated with increased risks of cognitive and emotional disorders. Chronic stress is also a common experience in human life that causes psychiatric diseases. However, the synergistic effects of these two factors on offspring are rarely studied. In the present study, the offspring of both young (3–4 months) and old (12–14 months) rat parents were given CUMS for 21 days at the age of 4 weeks. The effects of advanced parental age and chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) on emotional and cognitive behaviors and the related cellular mechanisms were investigated by using behavioral and electrophysiological techniques. We found that CUMS decreased sucrose consumption, increased anxiety, and impaired learning and memory in offspring from both old and young breeders. However, advanced parental age impaired fear memory and spatial memory mainly in female offspring. The serum corticosterone of female offspring was lower than males, but advanced parental age significantly elevated serum corticosterone in female offspring in response to electrical foot shocks. In addition, hippocampal LTD was severely impaired in female offspring from older parents. Our results indicated that female offspring from older breeders might be more sensitive to stress, and the hippocampal function was more vulnerable. These results might provide experimental basis for the prevention and treatment of advanced parental age related psychiatric disorders in future.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC 31460262, 81560234) and the Yunnan Applied Basic Research Projects (2014FB137, 2015HA036).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Medical Faculty, Kunming University of Science and Technology, #727 South Jingming Road, Kunming, 650550, Yunnan, China

      Lilu Luo, Tingting Sun, Xin Guan, Yiling Ni, Liqiang Yang, Xiangyang Kong, Yanmei Chen & Jichuan Zhang

    2. First People’s Hospital of Yunnan Province, Kunming, 650032, Yunnan, China

      Quan Zhao

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    1. Lilu Luo
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    Lilu Luo and Tingting Sun have contributed equally to this work.

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    Luo, L., Sun, T., Guan, X. et al. Advanced Parental Age Impaired Fear Conditioning and Hippocampal LTD in Adult Female Rat Offspring. Neurochem Res 42, 2869–2880 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11064-017-2306-9

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