Background: Vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID), which occurs immediately or in delayed fashion in 25-30% of stroke survivors, or secondary to chronic cerebral hypoperfusion, is the second leading cause of dementia following Alzheimers disease. To date, efficacious therapies are unavailable. We have shown previously in mice that repetitive hypoxic preconditioning (RHC) induces a long-lasting resilience to acute stroke (Stowe et al., 2011). More recently, we documented that untreated, first-generation adult progeny of mice exposed to RHC prior to mating are protected from retinal ischemic injury (Harman et al., 2020), consistent with accumulating evidence supporting the concept that long-lasting phenotypes induced epigenetically by intermittent stressors may be heritable. We undertook the present study to test the hypothesis that RHC will induce resilience to VCID, and that such RHC-induced resilience can also be inherited. Methods: Chronic cerebral hypoperfusion (CCH) was induced in C57BL/6J mice secondary to bilateral carotid artery stenosis with microcoils in both the parental (F0) generation, and in their untreated first-generation (F1) offspring. Cohorts of F0 mice were directly exposed to either 8 wks of RHC (1 h of systemic hypoxia 11% oxygen, 3x/week) or normoxia prior to CCH. Cohorts of F1 mice were derived from F0 mice treated with RHC prior to mating, and untreated, normoxic controls that were age-matched at the time of stenosis induction. Demyelination in the corpus callosum of F0 mice was assessed following 3 months of CCH by immunohistochemistry. Mice from both generations were assessed for short-term recognition memory in vivo by novel object preference (NOP) testing following 3 months of CCH, and a month thereafter, ex vivo measurements of CA1 hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) were recorded from the same animals as a metric of long-lasting changes in synaptic plasticity. Results: Three months of CCH caused demyelination and concomitant impairments in recognition memory in control mice from both generations. However, these CCH-induced memory impairments were prevented in F0 animals directly treated with RHC, as well as in their untreated adult F1 progeny. Similarly, hippocampal LTP was preserved in the 4-month CCH cohorts of mice directly treated with RHC, and in their untreated offspring with CCH. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that RHC or other repetitively-presented, epigenetic-based therapeutics may hold promise for inducing a long-lasting resilience to VCID in treated individuals, and in their first-generation adult progeny.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.