Fig. 2: Effects of early-life stress on temporal order memory, spatial working memory, and morphology of CA1 pyramidal neurons. | Translational Psychiatry

Fig. 2: Effects of early-life stress on temporal order memory, spatial working memory, and morphology of CA1 pyramidal neurons.

From: Disrupted presynaptic nectin1-based neuronal adhesion in the entorhinal-hippocampal circuit contributes to early-life stress-induced memory deficits

Fig. 2

A Adult male mice with early-life stress (ELS) exposure showed impaired performance in the temporal order task compared to controls (CTL). B Postnatally stressed male mice showed impaired performance in the Y-maze spontaneous alternation task. In the Y-maze delayed non-match-to-sample (DNMTS) task, postnatally stressed male mice showed impaired acquisition and made more errors over the training sessions (C) and on average (D) than control mice. n = 12 mice (A, C, and D) or 14 mice (B) per group. Early-life stress did not affect the performance of adult female mice in the temporal order task (E), the Y-maze spontaneous alternation task (F), nor the DNMTS task (G, H). n = 12 mice per group for (E, G, and H). 14 CTL and 13 ELS mice were included in F. I Representative reconstructions of CA1 pyramidal neurons from 9-day-old control and stressed male pups. P, postnatal day; SO, stratum oriens; SP, stratum pyramidale; SR, stratum radiatum; SLM, stratum lacunosum-moleculare. J After exposure to early postnatal stress, total length of apical dendrites and the length of dendritic segments in CA1 SLM were significantly shorter than those in controls. K The percentage of dendritic extension to SLM was reduced in stressed pups. L Left: representative images of dendritic segments in the SLM of CA1. Right: analysis of dendritic protrusion density, showing that the density of mushroom spines was reduced in stressed pups. n = 7 mice per group for J–L. M Representative reconstructions of CA1 pyramidal neurons from adult control and ELS mice. N Compared to control mice, total length of apical dendrites and the length of dendritic segments in CA1 SLM were reduced in adult ELS mice. O The invasion of apical dendrites to CA1 SLM was reduced in adult ELS mice. P Left: representative images of dendritic segments in the SLM of CA1. Right: no difference in dendritic spine density was found between groups. n = 6 mice per group for N–P. Scale bars are 50 µm for neuronal reconstructions and 2 µm for dendrite images. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01. For this and subsequent figures, detailed statistics are provided in Supplementary Table S1.

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