title: Conditioning-like brief neonatal hypoxia improves cognitive function and brain tissue properties with marked gender dimorphism in adult rats.
abstract: Although recent studies have documented compensatory generation of neurons in adult brains in response to various insults, a noninjurious short episode of hypoxia in rat neonates has been shown to trigger neurogenesis within the ensuing weeks, without apparent brain lesions. Very little is known of the long-term consequences. We therefore investigated the effects of such a conditioning-like hypoxia (100% N(2), 5 min) on the brain and the cognitive outcomes of rats at 40 to 100 days of age. Control and posthypoxic rats developed similar learning capacities over postnatal days 14 to 18, but hypoxia was associated with enhanced scores in a test used to evaluate memory retrieval between 40 and 100 days. A striking sexual dimorphism was observed, with an earlier functional gain observed in female (40 days) compared with male (100 days) rats; gains were associated with matching structural changes in areas involved in cognition, including the hippocampus and frontal cortex. Therefore, it is proposed that brief neonatal hypoxia may exert long-term beneficial effects through neurogenesis stimulation.
authors.affiliation: INSERM U954, Nancy-Université, Faculté de Médecine, Nancy, France.
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Martin
authors.forename: Grégory
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Pourié
authors.forename: Carine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bossenmeyer-Pourié
authors.forename: Rozat
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Jazi
authors.forename: Jean-Louis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Guéant
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Vert
authors.forename: Jean-Luc
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Daval
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000166:cytology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology; D002534:Hypoxia, Brain; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D008568:Memory; D055495:Neurogenesis; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D012727:Sex Characteristics