Author: Michael Douglas GedestadPublisher:
ISBN: 9781267758897
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
Book Description
Dietary copper deficiency is known to have severe effects on the central nervous system of developing mammals, and the deleterious effects of this insult are particularly striking when the deficiency occurs prenatally. Numerous studies have targeted copper's role in central nervous system development with respect to both dietary copper deficiency and copper deficiency induced by genetic diseases. In this study we tested whether perinatal copper deficiency in mice results in sensorineural hearing loss. Data from our study will add to a rapidly growing body of literature highlighting the crucial role of copper during prenatal and early postnatal development. Dietary copper deficiency (Cu Def) was induced in pregnant C57Bl6 mouse dams beginning at gestational day (GD) 18. Pups born to Cu Def dams displayed characteristic biochemical signs of hepatic and plasma copper deficiency at postnatal day (PND) 30, at which point they underwent prepulse inhibition (PPI) to acoustic startle testing and auditory brainstem response (ABR) testing. A 30-day copper repletion was then conducted on Cu Def pups to observe the effects that repletion had by PND 60. Results showed no significant differences in ABR thresholds between diet groups at either time point. Cu Def offspring tended to show lower response to the acoustic prepulse stimulus trials at PND 30 compared to Cu adequate (Cu Ad) offspring, however the results were marginally insignificant. When previously Cu deficient offspring were repleted with Cu for 1 month, acoustic startle response was similar between the Cu Ad and copper repleted mice at PND 60. This study addresses the importance of the timing of copper deficiency on prenatal development, and sets the stage for future research to investigate how dietary deficiencies affect the auditory and cognitive processing pathways.