Prenatal stress and subsequent exposure to chronic mild stress influence dendritic spine density and morphology in the rat medial prefrontal cortex

Kimmo A Michelsen¹^,2^,3 , Daniël LA van den Hove¹^,3 , Christoph Schmitz¹^,3 , Olivier Segers¹^,3 , Jos Prickaerts¹^,3 and Harry WM Steinbusch¹^,3

¹Department of Neuroscience, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands

²Department of Biology, Åbo Akademi University, Biocity, Tykistökatu 6 A, 20520, Turku, Finland

³European Graduate School of Neuroscience (EURON)

author email corresponding author email

BMC Neuroscience 2007, 8:107doi:10.1186/1471-2202-8-107


Published:	19 December 2007

Abstract

Background

Both prenatal stress (PS) and postnatal chronic mild stress (CMS) are associated with behavioral and mood disturbances in humans and rodents. The aim of this study was to reveal putative PS- and/or CMS-related changes in basal spine morphology and density of pyramidal neurons in the rat medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC).

Results

We show that rats exposed to PS and/or CMS display changes in the morphology and number of basal spines on pyramidal neurons in the mPFC. CMS had a negative effect on spine densities, particularly on spines of the mushroom type, which are considered to form stronger and more stable synapses than other spine types. PS alone did not affect spine densities, but had a negative effect on the ratio of mushroom spines. In addition, PS seemed to make rats less responsive to some of the negative effects of CMS, which supports the notion that PS represents a predictive adaptive response.

Conclusion

The observed changes may represent a morphological basis of PS- and CMS-related disturbances, and future studies in the field should not only consider total spine densities, but also separate between different spine types.