In our lab, we are trying to understand how early life adversity affects brain development and later risk for mental disorders like depression and addiction. We are particularly interested in how microglia interacting with stress-sensitive neurons in multiple brain regions may be the mechanism by which the circuit rewiring occurs. We previously found that this model for ELA provokes aberrant stress responses in adulthood.
This was caused by dysfunctional microglial synaptic pruning of excitatory synapses onto corticotropin releasing hormone expressing neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus, and thus hyperactivation of this stress-responsive brain region. Although we know adverse early life experiences increase the risk of developing all kinds of health problems in humans, the limited bedding and nesting model allows us to probe the mechanisms for how these occurs in laboratory rodents. And there has never been a video protocol of this model published before.
The limited bedding and nesting model is very ecologically and translationally relevant because the low resource environment causes unpredictable maternal care, a phenomenon that can also be studied in humans. It also requires minimal experimental intervention and has been successfully implemented by multiple laboratories around the world.
