Prenatal protein malnutrition alters the proportion but not numbers of parvalbuminimmunoreactive interneurons in the hippocampus of the adult sprague-Dawley rat

摘要

Prenatal protein malnutrition alters the structure and function of the adult rat hippocampal formation. The current study examines the effect of prenatal protein malnutrition on numbers of parvalbuminimmunoreactive (PV-IR) GABAergic interneurons, which are important for perisomatic inhibition of hippocampal pyramidal neurons. Brain sections from prenatally protein malnourished and normally nourished rats were stained for parvalbumin and PV-IR neurons were quantified using stereology in the dentate gyrus, CA3/2 and CA1 subfields, and the subiculum for both cerebral hemispheres. Results demonstrated that prenatal malnutrition did not affect the number of PV-IR interneurons in the hippocampus. Since prenatal protein malnutrition reduces total neuron numbers in the CA1 subfield (1), this results in an altered ratio of PV-IR interneurons to total neuronal numbers (from 1:22.9 in controls to 1:20.5 in malnourished rats). Additionally, there was no hemispheric asymmetry of either PV-IR neuron numbers or ratio of PV-IR:total neuron numbers.