PEM01

Mengen- und Spurenelemente vol. 16: Suppl. pp. 1-12, 1996

Alpha-tocopherol attenuates behavioral deficiency and restores zinc staining patterns of hippocampus formation in rats rehabilitation from prenatal protein-energy malnutrition

Tamásy, V., Balatincz, J., Beretzky, V.

Effects of prenatal protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) were studied on growth and behavioral development of offsprings. CFY rats were malnourished from the first day of gestation (day of sperm positivity of vaginal smear) till delivery reducing the dams' body weight to 60-65% that of well fed pregnant control rats. Animals were given ad libitum access to rat chow postpartum.
Commencing on the first week of pregnancy, strikingly reduced water intake of PEM rats was concomitant with an increase in hematocrit and lasting depression of blood glucose concentration. From birth to weaning, body weight of the prenatally PEM pups was significantly lower than that of controls, and neonatal mortality exceeded 30%. To test the offsprings' suckling behavior and the amount of maternal milk production, 5, 10- and 15 day-old pups were separated from their mothers for 4 hours in the morning and then reunited and allowed to suckle. Normal pups gained body weight at the end both the first and second hour postreunion, while 5 and 10 days old PEM pups showed significantly impaired suckling ability. Behavioral tests of peripubertal (35-45 day-old) and young adult (2 month-old) rats revealed sex-related lasting effects of prenatal PEM on the locomotor activity, exploratory behavior, emotionality concomitantly with significant impairment of memory retrieval during avoidance learning. Further, reduced zinc staining (Timm-sulfide stain) was apparent in the hippocampus formation of adult PEM rats.
Alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) injected every second day from birth till weaning (3 mg/rat s.c.), resulted in improved adaptive ability, increased exploratory activity and significantly improved memory storing and retrieving capacity in prenatally malnourished adult rats. As compared to the vehicle injected PEM offsprings, the alpha-tocopherol treated rehabilitated rats exhibited enriched zinc staining patterns of the hippocampus formation.
It is suggested the alpha-tocopherol attenuates the selective vulnerability of the CNS function as reflected by facilitated behavioral recover from fetal protein-energy malnourishment and may modify the postnatal development of limbic neuronal circuits.