Abstract
Introduction: Prematurity, through brain injury and altered development is a major cause of neurological impairments and can result in motor, cognitive and behavioral deficits later in life. Presently, there are no well-established effective therapies for preterm brain injury and the search for new strategies is needed. Intra-uterine environment plays a decisive role in brain maturation and interventions using the gestational window have been shown to influence long-term health in the offspring. In this study, we investigated whether pregnancy swimming can prevent the neurochemical metabolic alterations and damage that result from postnatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury (HI) in very immature rats.Methods: Female pregnant Wistar rats were divided into swimming (SW) or sedentary (SE) groups. Following a period of adaptation before mating, swimming was performed during the entire gestation. At postnatal day (PND3), rat pups from SW and SE dams had right common carotid artery occluded, followed by systemic hypoxia. At PND4 (24 h after HI), the early neurochemical profile was measured by 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Astrogliosis, apoptosis and neurotrophins protein expression were assessed in the cortex and hippocampus. From PND45, behavioral testing was performed. Diffusion tensor imaging and neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging were used to evaluate brain microstructure and the levels of proteins were quantified.Results: Pregnancy swimming was able to prevent early metabolic changes induced by HI preserving the energetic balance, decreasing apoptotic cell death and astrogliosis as well as maintaining the levels of neurotrophins. At adult age, swimming preserved brain microstructure and improved the performance in the behavioral tests.Conclusion: Our study points out that swimming during gestation in rats could prevent prematurity related brain damage in progeny with high translational potential and possibly interesting cost-benefits.HIGHLIGHTS - Prematurity is a major cause of neurodevelopmental impairments;- Swimming during pregnancy reduces brain damage after HI injury;- Pregnancy is an important but underestimated preventive window.
Highlights
Prematurity, through brain injury and altered development is a major cause of neurological impairments and can result in motor, cognitive and behavioral deficits later in life
We investigated whether pregnancy swimming can prevent the neurochemical metabolic alterations and damage that result from postnatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury (HI) in very immature rats
Pregnancy swimming was able to prevent early metabolic changes induced by HI preserving the energetic balance, decreasing apoptotic cell death and astrogliosis as well as maintaining the levels of neurotrophins
Summary
Prematurity, through brain injury and altered development is a major cause of neurological impairments and can result in motor, cognitive and behavioral deficits later in life. We investigated whether pregnancy swimming can prevent the neurochemical metabolic alterations and damage that result from postnatal hypoxic-ischemic brain injury (HI) in very immature rats. Neonatal hypoxic-ischemic (HI) brain injury is a major public health problem leading to complications during and after birth [11], and is part of the etiology of cerebral palsy, neurodevelopmental deficits, learning disabilities, ADHD, autism and other diseases [4, 12]. Brain injury leads to a diffuse pattern of white matter damage with altered myelination, ventriculomegaly and reduced cortical development or to cystic periventricular leukomalacia whereas in full-term newborns, the gray matter areas are the primary regions injured [12]. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) probes the brain microstructure and allows evaluation of microstructural alterations in the brain following HI [17]
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