RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Neuroanatomical and Functional Consequences of Oxytocin Treatment at Birth
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.05.21.492438
DO 10.1101/2022.05.21.492438
A1 William M. Kenkel
A1 Richard J. Ortiz
A1 Jason R. Yee
A1 Allison M. Perkeybile
A1 Praveen Kulkarni
A1 C. Sue Carter
A1 Bruce S. Cushing
A1 Craig F. Ferris
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/07/20/2022.05.21.492438.abstract
AB Birth is a critical period for the developing brain, a time when surging hormone levels help prepare the fetal brain for the tremendous physiological changes it must accomplish upon entry into the ‘extrauterine world’. A number of obstetrical conditions warrant manipulations of these hormones at the time of birth, but we know little of their possible consequences on the developing brain. One of the most notable birth signaling hormones is oxytocin, which is administered to roughly 50% of laboring women in the United States prior to / during delivery. Previously, we found evidence for behavioral, epigenetic, and neuroendocrine consequences in adult prairie vole offspring following maternal oxytocin treatment immediately prior to birth. Here, we examined the neurodevelopmental consequences in adult prairie vole offspring following maternal oxytocin treatment immediately. Control prairie voles and those exposed to 0.25 mg/kg oxytocin were scanned as adults using anatomical and functional MRI, with neuroanatomy and brain function analyzed as voxel-based morphometry and resting state functional connectivity, respectively. Overall, anatomical differences brought on by oxytocin treatment, while widespread, were generally small, while differences in functional connectivity, particularly among oxytocin-exposed males, were larger. Analyses of functional connectivity based in graph theory revealed that oxytocin-exposed males in particular showed markedly increased connectivity throughout the brain and across several parameters, including closeness and degree. These results are interpreted in the context of the organizational effects of oxytocin exposure in early life and these findings add to a growing literature on how the perinatal brain is sensitive to hormonal manipulations at birth.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.