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Gay JD, Dangcil E, Nacipucha J, Botrous JE, Suresh N, Tucker A, Carayannopoulos NL, Khan MR, Meng R, Yao JD, Wackym PA, Mowery TM. An Animal Model of Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Exposure to Light and Sound in the Preterm Infant. Integr Comp Biol 2023; 63:585-596. [PMID: 37164937 PMCID: PMC10503467 DOI: 10.1093/icb/icad020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2023] [Revised: 04/19/2023] [Accepted: 04/21/2023] [Indexed: 05/12/2023] Open
Abstract
According to the World Health Organization, ∼15 million children are born prematurely each year. Many of these infants end up spending days to weeks in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Infants who are born prematurely are often exposed to noise and light levels that affect their auditory and visual development. Children often have long-term impairments in cognition, visuospatial processing, hearing, and language. We have developed a rodent model of NICU exposure to light and sound using the Mongolian gerbil (Meriones unguiculatus), which has a low-frequency human-like audiogram and is altricial. To simulate preterm infancy, the eyes and ears were opened prematurely, and animals were exposed to the NICU-like sensory environment throughout the gerbil's cortical critical period of auditory development. After the animals matured into adults, auditory perceptual testing was carried out followed by auditory brainstem response recordings and then histology to assess the white matter morphology of various brain regions. Compared to normal hearing control animals, NICU sensory-exposed animals had significant impairments in learning at later stages of training, increased auditory thresholds reflecting hearing loss, and smaller cerebellar white matter volumes. These have all been reported in longitudinal studies of preterm infants. These preliminary results suggest that this animal model could provide researchers with an ethical way to explore the effects of the sensory environment in the NICU on the preterm infant's brain development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jennifer D Gay
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
- Rutgers Brain Health Institute, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
| | - Evelynne Dangcil
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
| | - Jacqueline Nacipucha
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
| | - Jonathon E Botrous
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
| | - Nikhil Suresh
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
| | - Aaron Tucker
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
| | - Nicolas L Carayannopoulos
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
| | - Muhammad R Khan
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
| | - Raphael Meng
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
| | - Justin D Yao
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
- Rutgers Brain Health Institute, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
| | - P Ashley Wackym
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
- Rutgers Brain Health Institute, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
| | - Todd M Mowery
- Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, NJ 08854, USA
- Rutgers Brain Health Institute, New Brunswick, NJ, USA
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2
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Mukherjee D, Xue B, Chen CT, Chang M, Kao JPY, Kanold PO. Early retinal deprivation crossmodally alters nascent subplate circuits and activity in the auditory cortex during the precritical period. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:9038-9053. [PMID: 37259176 PMCID: PMC10350824 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad180] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2023] [Revised: 05/03/2023] [Accepted: 05/04/2023] [Indexed: 06/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Sensory perturbation in one modality results in the adaptive reorganization of neural pathways within the spared modalities, a phenomenon known as "crossmodal plasticity," which has been examined during or after the classic "critical period." Because peripheral perturbations can alter the auditory cortex (ACX) activity and functional connectivity of the ACX subplate neurons (SPNs) even before the critical period, called the precritical period, we investigated if retinal deprivation at birth crossmodally alters the ACX activity and SPN circuits during the precritical period. We deprived newborn mice of visual inputs after birth by performing bilateral enucleation. We performed in vivo widefield imaging in the ACX of awake pups during the first two postnatal weeks to investigate cortical activity. We found that enucleation alters spontaneous and sound-evoked activities in the ACX in an age-dependent manner. Next, we performed whole-cell patch clamp recording combined with laser scanning photostimulation in ACX slices to investigate circuit changes in SPNs. We found that enucleation alters the intracortical inhibitory circuits impinging on SPNs, shifting the excitation-inhibition balance toward excitation and this shift persists after ear opening. Together, our results indicate that crossmodal functional changes exist in the developing sensory cortices at early ages before the onset of the classic critical period.
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Affiliation(s)
- Didhiti Mukherjee
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, United States
| | - Binghan Xue
- Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, United States
| | - Chih-Ting Chen
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, United States
| | - Minzi Chang
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, United States
| | - Joseph P Y Kao
- Department of Physiology, Center for Biomedical Engineering and Technology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21201, United States
| | - Patrick O Kanold
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, United States
- Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, United States
- Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, United States
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Mukherjee D, Xue B, Chen CT, Chang M, Kao JPY, Kanold PO. Early retinal deprivation crossmodally alters nascent subplate circuits and activity in the auditory cortex during the precritical period. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.02.21.529453. [PMID: 36865142 PMCID: PMC9980129 DOI: 10.1101/2023.02.21.529453] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/24/2023]
Abstract
Sensory perturbation in one modality results in adaptive reorganization of neural pathways within the spared modalities, a phenomenon known as "crossmodal plasticity", which has been examined during or after the classic 'critical period'. Because peripheral perturbations can alter auditory cortex (ACX) activity and functional connectivity of the ACX subplate neurons (SPNs) even before the classic critical period, called the precritical period, we investigated if retinal deprivation at birth crossmodally alters ACX activity and SPN circuits during the precritical period. We deprived newborn mice of visual inputs after birth by performing bilateral enucleation. We performed in vivo imaging in the ACX of awake pups during the first two postnatal weeks to investigate cortical activity. We found that enucleation alters spontaneous and sound-evoked activity in the ACX in an age-dependent manner. Next, we performed whole-cell patch clamp recording combined with laser scanning photostimulation in ACX slices to investigate circuit changes in SPNs. We found that enucleation alters the intracortical inhibitory circuits impinging on SPNs shifting the excitation-inhibition balance towards excitation and this shift persists after ear opening. Together, our results indicate that crossmodal functional changes exist in the developing sensory cortices at early ages before the onset of the classic critical period.
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Rączy K, Hölig C, Guerreiro MJS, Lingareddy S, Kekunnaya R, Röder B. Typical resting state activity of the brain requires visual input during an early sensitive period. Brain Commun 2022; 4:fcac146. [PMID: 35836836 PMCID: PMC9275761 DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcac146] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2021] [Revised: 03/02/2022] [Accepted: 06/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Sensory deprivation, following a total loss of one sensory modality e.g. vision, has been demonstrated to result in compensatory plasticity. It is yet not known to which extent neural changes, e.g. higher resting-state activity in visual areas (cross-modal plasticity) as a consequence of blindness, reverse, when sight is restored. Here, we used functional MRI to acquire blood oxygen level-dependent resting-state activity during an eyes open and an eyes closed state in congenital cataract-reversal individuals, developmental cataract-reversal individuals, congenitally permanently blind individuals and sighted controls. The amplitude of low frequency fluctuation of the blood oxygen level-dependent signal—a neural marker of spontaneous brain activity during rest—was analyzed. In accordance with previous reports, in normally sighted controls we observed an increase in amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation during rest with the eyes open compared with rest with eyes closed in visual association areas and in parietal cortex but a decrease in auditory and sensorimotor regions. In congenital cataract-reversal individuals, we found an increase of the amplitude of slow blood oxygen level-dependent fluctuations in visual cortex during rest with eyes open compared with rest with eyes closed too but this increase was larger in amplitude than in normally sighted controls. In contrast, congenital cataract-reversal individuals lagged a similar increase in parietal regions and did not show the typical decrease of amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation in auditory cortex. Congenitally blind individuals displayed an overall higher amplitude in slow blood oxygen level-dependent fluctuations in visual cortex compared with sighted individuals and compared with congenital cataract-reversal individuals in the eyes closed condition. Higher amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation in visual cortex of congenital cataract-reversal individuals than in normally sighted controls during eyes open might indicate an altered excitatory–inhibitory balance of visual neural circuits. By contrast, the lower parietal increase and the missing downregulation in auditory regions suggest a reduced influence of the visual system on multisensory and the other sensory systems after restoring sight in congenitally blind individuals. These results demonstrate a crucial dependence of visual and multisensory neural system functioning on visual experience during a sensitive phase in human brain development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katarzyna Rączy
- University of Hamburg Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, , 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Cordula Hölig
- University of Hamburg Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, , 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Maria J. S. Guerreiro
- University of Hamburg Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, , 20146 Hamburg, Germany
- Biological Psychology, Department of Psychology, Carl Von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg , 26111, Oldenburg, Germany
| | | | - Ramesh Kekunnaya
- Child Sight Institute, LV Prasad Eye Institute Jasti V Ramanamma Children's Eye Care Center, , 500034 Hyderabad, India
| | - Brigitte Röder
- University of Hamburg Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology, , 20146 Hamburg, Germany
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Qiu J, Singh P, Pan G, de Paolis A, Champagne FA, Liu J, Cardoso L, Rodríguez-Contreras A. Defining the relationship between maternal care behavior and sensory development in Wistar rats: Auditory periphery development, eye opening and brain gene expression. PLoS One 2020; 15:e0237933. [PMID: 32822407 PMCID: PMC7442246 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0237933] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2020] [Accepted: 08/05/2020] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Defining the relationship between maternal care, sensory development and brain gene expression in neonates is important to understand the impact of environmental challenges during sensitive periods in early life. In this study, we used a selection approach to test the hypothesis that variation in maternal licking and grooming (LG) during the first week of life influences sensory development in Wistar rat pups. We tracked the onset of the auditory brainstem response (ABR), the timing of eye opening (EO), middle ear development with micro-CT X-ray tomography, and used qRT-PCR to monitor changes in gene expression of the hypoxia-sensitive pathway and neurotrophin signaling in pups reared by low-LG or high-LG dams. The results show the first evidence that the transcription of genes involved in the hypoxia-sensitive pathway and neurotrophin signaling is regulated during separate sensitive periods that occur before and after hearing onset, respectively. Although the timing of ABR onset, EO, and the relative mRNA levels of genes involved in the hypoxia-sensitive pathway did not differ between pups from different LG groups, we found statistically significant increases in the relative mRNA levels of four genes involved in neurotrophin signaling in auditory brain regions from pups of different LG backgrounds. These results suggest that sensitivity to hypoxic challenge might be widespread in the auditory system of neonate rats before hearing onset, and that maternal LG may affect the transcription of genes involved in experience-dependent neuroplasticity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jingyun Qiu
- Department of Biology and Center for Discovery and Innovation, City College, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America
| | - Preethi Singh
- Department of Biology and Center for Discovery and Innovation, City College, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America
| | - Geng Pan
- Department of Biology and Center for Discovery and Innovation, City College, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America
| | - Annalisa de Paolis
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, City College, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America
| | - Frances A. Champagne
- Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America
| | - Jia Liu
- Neuroscience Initiative, Advanced Science Research Center at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America
| | - Luis Cardoso
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, City College, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America
| | - Adrián Rodríguez-Contreras
- Department of Biology and Center for Discovery and Innovation, City College, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America
- * E-mail:
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Zhou Y, Yin M, Xia C, Wang X, Wu H, Ji Y. Visual deprivation modifies glutamate receptor expression in visual and auditory centers. Am J Transl Res 2019; 11:7523-7537. [PMID: 31934298 PMCID: PMC6943468] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2019] [Accepted: 12/07/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Changes in the electrical activities of visual and auditory thalamic-cortical regions account for the cross-modal enhancement of auditory perception following visual deprivation, but the molecular regulatory factors mediating these changes remain elusive. In this study, we showed that the expression patterns of five glutamate receptor (GluR) subunits which involved in regulating the synaptic plasticity in mouse primary visual (V1) cortex and primary auditory (A1) cortex undergone elaborate modification with layer-specificity after visual deprivation using dark-exposure (DE). The expression levels of NR1 and NR2B were increased, and those of GluR1 and NR2B in the V1 cortex were decreased after DE. In the A1 cortex, the expression levels of NR1, NR2A and NR2B were increased, and the expression levels of GluR1 and GluR2 were decreased after DE. The altered expression levels of GluR subunits selectively happened in the different layers of V1 and A1 cortices. In addition, the expression level of GluR2 in lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) was decreased. These results provide novel molecular clues for the plastic neural activity in visual and auditory centers in the absence of visual input, and hint the extensive refinement of intracortical circuits and thalamocortical feedback circuits underlying the multisensory cross-modal plasticity.
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Affiliation(s)
- You Zhou
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of MedicineShanghai 200011, China
- Ear Institute, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of MedicineShanghai 200125, China
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Translational Medicine on Ear and Nose DiseasesShanghai 200125, China
| | - Manli Yin
- Institute of Biomembrane and Biopharmaceutics, Shanghai UniversityShanghai 200444, China
| | - Chenchen Xia
- Institute of Biomembrane and Biopharmaceutics, Shanghai UniversityShanghai 200444, China
| | - Xueling Wang
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of MedicineShanghai 200011, China
- Ear Institute, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of MedicineShanghai 200125, China
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Translational Medicine on Ear and Nose DiseasesShanghai 200125, China
| | - Hao Wu
- Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of MedicineShanghai 200011, China
- Ear Institute, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of MedicineShanghai 200125, China
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Translational Medicine on Ear and Nose DiseasesShanghai 200125, China
| | - Yonghua Ji
- Institute of Biomembrane and Biopharmaceutics, Shanghai UniversityShanghai 200444, China
- Translational Institute for Cancer Pain, Xinhua Hospital Chongming BranchShanghai 202150, China
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Xia C, Yin M, Pan P, Fang F, Zhou Y, Ji Y. Long-term exposure to moderate noise induces neural plasticity in the infant rat primary auditory cortex. Anim Cells Syst (Seoul) 2019; 23:260-269. [PMID: 31489247 PMCID: PMC6711034 DOI: 10.1080/19768354.2019.1643782] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/02/2019] [Revised: 06/27/2019] [Accepted: 06/27/2019] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous studies have reported that rearing infant rat pups in continuous moderate-level noise delayed the formation of topographic representational order and the refinement of response selectivity in the primary auditory (A1) cortex. The present study further verified that exposure to long-term moderate-intensity white noise (70 dB sound pressure level) from postnatal day (P) 12 to P30 elevated the hearing thresholds of infant rats. Compared with age-matched control rats, noise exposure (NE) rats had elevated hearing thresholds ranging from low to high frequencies, accompanied by decreased amplitudes and increased latencies of the two initial auditory brainstem response waves. The power of raw local field potential oscillations and high-frequency β oscillation in the A1 cortex of NE rats were larger, whereas the power of high-frequency γ oscillation was smaller than that of control rats. In addition, the expression levels of five glutamate receptor (GluR) subunits in the A1 cortex of NE rats were decreased with laminar specificity. These results suggest that the altered neural excitability and decreased GluR expression may underlie the delay of functional maturation in the A1 cortex, and may have implications for the treatment of hearing impairment induced by environmental noise.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chenchen Xia
- Laboratory of Neuropharmacology and Neurotoxicology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
| | - Manli Yin
- Laboratory of Neuropharmacology and Neurotoxicology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
| | - Ping Pan
- Laboratory of Neuropharmacology and Neurotoxicology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
| | - Fanghao Fang
- Laboratory of Neuropharmacology and Neurotoxicology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
| | - You Zhou
- Laboratory of Neuropharmacology and Neurotoxicology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.,Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Ninth People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.,Ear Institute, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.,Shanghai Key Laboratory of Translational Medicine on Ear and Nose Diseases, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
| | - Yonghua Ji
- Laboratory of Neuropharmacology and Neurotoxicology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
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