Paternal care paradoxically increases offspring seizure susceptibility in the El mouse model of epilepsy

The impact of early-life environment on absence epilepsy and neuropsychiatric comorbidities

This review discusses the long-term effects of early-life environment on epileptogenesis, epilepsy, and neuropsychiatric comorbidities with an emphasis on the absence epilepsy. The WAG/Rij rat strain is a well-validated genetic model of absence epilepsy with mild depression-like (dysthymia) comorbidity. Although pathologic phenotype in WAG/Rij rats is genetically determined, convincing evidence presented in this review suggests that the absence epilepsy and depression-like comorbidity in WAG/Rij rats may be governed by early-life events, such as prenatal drug exposure, early-life stress, neonatal maternal separation, neonatal handling, maternal care, environmental enrichment, neonatal sensory impairments, neonatal tactile stimulation, and maternal diet. The data, as presented here, indicate that some early environmental events can promote and accelerate the development of absence seizures and their neuropsychiatric comorbidities, while others may exert anti-epileptogenic and disease-modifying effects. The early environment can lead to phenotypic alterations in offspring due to epigenetic modifications of gene expression, which may have maladaptive consequences or represent a therapeutic value. Targeting DNA methylation with a maternal methyl-enriched diet during the perinatal period appears to be a new preventive epigenetic anti-absence therapy. A number of caveats related to the maternal methyl-enriched diet and prospects for future research are discussed.

Interaction between sex and early-life stress: influence on epileptogenesis and epilepsy comorbidities

Epilepsy is a common brain disorder which is characterised by recurring seizures. In addition to suffering from the constant stress of living with this neurological condition, patients also frequently experience comorbid psychiatric and cognitive disorders which significantly impact their quality of life. There is growing appreciation that stress, in particular occurring in early life, can negatively impact brain development, creating an enduring vulnerability to develop epilepsy. This aligns with the solid connections between early life environments and the development of psychiatric conditions, promoting the possibility that adverse early life events could represent a common risk factor for the later development of both epilepsy and comorbid psychiatric disorders. The influence of sex has been little studied, but recent research points to potential important interactions, particularly with regard to effects mediated by HPA axis programming. Understanding these interactions, and the underlying molecular mechanisms, will provide important new insights into the causation of both epilepsy and of psychiatric disorders, and potentially open up novel avenues for treatment.

Early-life stress impacts the developing hippocampus and primes seizure occurrence: cellular, molecular, and epigenetic mechanisms

Early-life stress includes prenatal, postnatal, and adolescence stress. Early-life stress can affect the development of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and cause cellular and molecular changes in the developing hippocampus that can result in neurobehavioral changes later in life. Epidemiological data implicate stress as a cause of seizures in both children and adults. Emerging evidence indicates that both prenatal and postnatal stress can prime the developing brain for seizures and an increase in epileptogenesis. This article reviews the cellular and molecular changes encountered during prenatal and postnatal stress, and assesses the possible link between these changes and increases in seizure occurrence and epileptogenesis in the developing hippocampus. In addititon, the priming effect of prenatal and postnatal stress for seizures and epileptogenesis is discussed. Finally, the roles of epigenetic modifications in hippocampus and HPA axis programming, early-life stress, and epilepsy are discussed.

Intensification of maternal care by double-mothering boosts cognitive function and hippocampal morphology in the adult offspring

Mice born from high care-giving females show, as adults, low anxiety levels, decreased responsiveness to stress, and substantial improvements in cognitive function and hippocampal plasticity. Given the relevance of this issue for preventing emotional and cognitive abnormalities in high-risk subjects, this study examines the possibility to further enhance the beneficial effects observed in the progeny by augmenting maternal care beyond the highest levels females can display in standard laboratory conditions. This was produced by placing a second female with the dam and its litter in the rearing cage from the partum until pups weaning. Maternal behavior of all females was scored during the first week postpartum, and behavioral indices of emotionality, prestress and poststress corticosterone levels, cognitive performance, and hippocampal morphology were assessed in the adult offspring. We found that pups reared by female dyads received more maternal care than pups reared by dams alone, but as adults, they did not exhibit alterations in emotionality or corticosterone response estimated in basal condition or following restraint stress. Conversely, they showed enhanced performance in hippocampal-dependent tasks including long-term object discrimination, reactivity to spatial change, and fear conditioning together with an increase in dendritic length and spine density in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. In general, the beneficial effects of dyadic maternal care were stronger when both the females were lactating. This study demonstrates that double-mothering exerts a long-term positive control on cognitive function and hippocampal neuronal connectivity. This experimental manipulation, especially if associated with increased feeding, might offer a concrete possibility to limit or reverse the consequences of negative predisposing conditions for normal cognitive development.

Stress and epilepsy: multiple models, multiple outcomes

Human studies show a link between stress and epilepsy, with stress causing an increase in seizure frequency and severity in patients with epilepsy. Many different animal model systems have been used to better understand this connection and the possible mechanisms involved. This review highlights the results of such studies relating stress and seizure susceptibility, with a focus on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and its relationship to seizure generation. The effects of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis mediators, acute stress, chronic stress, and early life stress on the seizure phenotype are summarized. Results suggest that stress has both anticonvulsive and proconvulsive properties, depending on the animal strain and the stress/seizure induction paradigm used. Attempts to interpret the stress-epilepsy literature must take these variables into account. The growing availability of genetically modified mice that carry either human epilepsy mutations or mutations in stress pathway genes now provide the opportunity to examine the relationship between stress and epilepsy more directly.

Quality of rearing guides expression of behavioral and neural seizure phenotypes in EL mice

The present studies employed behavioral and neural markers of seizure-related plasticity to examine the relative contributions of genetic predisposition versus rearing environment in generating adult phenotypes in EL mice, a stress-induced animal model of epilepsy. Early environment was manipulated by cross-fostering pups of the EL strain to a seizure-resistant CD-1 control strain of mouse. The impact of changes in rearing quality on growth,exploratory and stress-reactivity phenotypes were examined, with a focus on the role of maternal care in shaping seizure susceptibility and neural cF os activation. Improvement in maternal care imposed by replacing biological EL dams with foster CD-1 mothers was sufficient to decrease pup mortality, to increase body weight gain (+0.1 g/day) and to delay the onset of seizure susceptibility in EL offspring beyond post-natal day 80–90. Moreover,hypoactivity in hippocampus and cortex among EL offspring cross-fostered to EL, but not CD-1 control, dams suggests that changes in rearing environment were accompanied by enduring changes in brain plasticity. Thus, neural and behavioral phenotypes of EL mice are dependent upon post-partum maternal care which if systematically enhanced can postpone seizure expression.