Early life environmental influences can have lifelong consequences for health, including the risk of cardiovascular disease. Uteroplacental insufficiency causes fetal undernutrition and impairs fetal growth. Previously we have shown that uteroplacental insufficiency is associated with impaired maternal mammary development, compromising postnatal growth leading to hypertension in male rat offspr...

Background: Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological diseases globally. Mast cells are known to be the main source of brain histamine, which is identified as  being involved in seizure modulation. Sodium cromoglycate is a popular mast cell stabilizer and is proposed as the first line therapy in chronic asthma and systemic mastocytosis. Considering the importance of gestational period in ...

Objective: There is evidence that gestational exposure to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) results in fetal zinc deficiency, and eventually neurodevelopmental abnormalities. In this study, we utilized a rat model of maternal immune activation (MIA) to investigate the possible neuroprotective effect of zinc supplementation throughout pregnancy on hippocampal astrocytes activation as well as inflammatory...

In the adult rat, chronic cadmium intoxication induces nephropathy with Fanconi-like features. This result raises the question of whether intoxication of pregnant rats has any deleterious effects on renal function in their offspring. To test this hypothesis, we measured the renal function of 2- to 60-day-old postnatal offspring from female rats administered cadmium chloride by the oral route (0...

Growth in utero is largely a reflection of nutrient and oxygen supply to the foetus. We studied the effects of Mn restriction per se, maternal Mn restriction, and postnatal high-fat feeding in modulating body composition, lipid metabolism and adipocyte function in Wistar/NIN (WNIN) rat offspring. Female weanling, WNIN rats received ad libitum for 4 months, a control or Mn-restricted diet and we...

Ethanol exposure during gestational period is related to growth retardation, morphological abnormality, and even in neurological abnormalities including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)-like behaviors on offspring. However, relatively little is known about the effects of maternal ethanol consumption prior to conception on their offspring. In this study, we investi-gated whether m...

Adverse events during pregnancy, including prenatal ethanol (EtOH) exposure, are associated with insulin-resistant diabetes in male rat offspring, but it is unclear whether this is true for female offspring. We investigated whether prenatal EtOH exposure alters glucose metabolism in adult female rat offspring and whether this is associated with reduced in vivo insulin signaling in skeletal musc...

The brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)-tyrosine kinase B (TrkB) (BDNF-TrkB) signalling pathway plays a crucial role in regulating learning and memory. Synaptophysin provides the structural basis for synaptic plasticity and depends on BDNF processing and subsequent TrkB signalling. Our previous studies demonstrated that maternal exposure to propofol during late stages of pregnancy impaired...

The proportion of pregnant women who are obese at conception continues to rise. Compelling evidence suggests the intrauterine environment is an important determinant of offspring health. Maternal obesity and unhealthy diets are shown to promote metabolic programming in the offspring. Mitochondria are maternally inherited, and we have previously shown impaired mitochondrial function in rat offsp...