Abstract
Maternal separation (MS), a stressful event in early life, has been linked to neuropsychiatric disorders later in life, especially depression. In this study we investigated whether treatment with electroacupuncture (EA) could ameliorate depression-related manifestations in adult animals that had adverse early life experiences. We demonstrated depression-like behavior deficiencies in a sucrose preference test and a forced swimming test in a rat model with neonatal MS. Repeated EA treatment at the acupoints Baihui (GV20) and Yintang (GV29) during adulthood was shown to be remarkably attenuated above behavioral deficits. Using unbiased genome-wide RNA sequencing to investigate alterations in the transcriptome of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), we explored the altered gene sets involved in circadian rhythm and neurotransmitter transporter activity in MS rats, and their expression tended to be reversed after EA treatment. In addition, we analyzed the interaction network of differentiated lncRNA– or circRNA–miRNA–mRNA by using the principle of competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA). These results suggest that EA at GV20 and GV29 ameliorates depression-related manifestations by regulating the expression of multiple genes.
Highlights
The mother–child relationship has been reshaped by rapid societal changes
We found that the weight of rats with Maternal separation (MS) (MS+Vehicle group (Vehi)) increased slightly in adulthood compared with control (Vehi) and MS rats with Fluoxetine treatment (MS+Flu) (Figure 1B)
These results suggested that the MS model rat in the current study was successfully replicated for depression, but not anxiety
Summary
The mother–child relationship has been reshaped by rapid societal changes. Mother-newborn separation shortly after birth, for example, has become routine following hospital births (CsaszarNagy and Bokkon, 2018). In the past 30 years, the phenomenon of rural children living apart from their parents, who work in cities, has become so widespread that as many as 37.7% of children in China are affected (Wang, 2015). A growing body of literature indicates that adverse early life experience is significantly associated with susceptibility to stress-related psychopathologies such as depression (Gibb et al, 2007) and anxiety (Coplan et al, 2014; Ishikawa et al, 2015). Parental loss due to sudden death increases the vulnerability of children to depression (Brent et al, 2009). The molecular basis has not been fully elucidated, neonatal maternal separation (MS), an early-life adverse event, can have long-lasting effects on neural development and increases risk of adult psychopathology in human adults (Hanson et al, 2012)
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