Fig. 1: Effects of early-life stress on cognition, hippocampal neurogenesis, and neurotrophin levels in the dentate gyrus in adult mice. | Translational Psychiatry

Fig. 1: Effects of early-life stress on cognition, hippocampal neurogenesis, and neurotrophin levels in the dentate gyrus in adult mice.

From: The causal involvement of the BDNF-TrkB pathway in dentate gyrus in early-life stress-induced cognitive deficits in male mice

Fig. 1

A The experimental timeline of the behavioral procedure and brain tissue acquisition after stress exposure. B In the spatial object recognition task, control mice distinguished the displaced object from the non-displaced one, whereas stressed mice failed to do so and performed worse than the controls. C ELS did not affect the performance in the Y-maze spontaneous alternation test. The number of DCX-positive (D) and Ki-67-positive (E) neurons in the DG (arrowheads) was decreased in the stressed mice. Scale bar = 100 µm or 10 µm. Immunostaining revealed that ELS significantly reduced the protein levels of BDNF (F), not NT-3 (G) or NGF (H), in the DG in adult mice. Representative images in (D–H) were captured using the Olympus VS200 virtual slide scanning system. Arrowheads, positive neurons; scale bar = 100 µm or 30 µm. AAR alternate arm return, Acc. acclimation, BDNF brain-derived neurotrophic factor, CT control, DCX doublecortin, DG dentate gyrus, ELS early-life stress, gcl granule cell layer, ml molecular layer, NGF neurotrophin nerve growth factor, NT-3 neurotrophin 3, OF open field, PND postnatal day, SA spontaneous alternation, SAR same arm return, SOR spatial object recognition. *p < 0.05, unpaired t test; ###p < 0.001, one-sample t test; &&&p < 0.001, the main effect of stress.

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