Postnatal Vitamin D Intake Modulates Hippocampal Learning and Memory in Adult Mice.
Front Neurosci. 2018 Apr 3;12:141. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00141. eCollection 2018.
Liang Q1,2, Cai C1,2, Duan D1, Hu X1, Hua W1,2, Jiang P1, Zhang L1, Xu J3, Gao Z1,2.
Breast-feeding mice were given 0 IU, 1,000 IU, and 10,000 IU daily
Apparently the same amount of vitamin D was given to the mice after breastfeeding
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Adult mice (17 weeks) learned faster if mother had 1,000 or 10,000 IU of vitamin D
Vitamin D (VD) is a neuroactive steroid crucial for brain development, function and homeostasis. Its deficiency is associated with numerous brain conditions. As such, VD and its variants are routinely taken by a broad of groups with/without known VD deficiency. In contrast, the harmful effects of VD overdose have been poorly studied. Similarly, the developmental stage-specific VD deficiency and overdose have been rarely explored. In the present work, we showed that postnatal VD supplementation enhanced the motor function transiently in the young adult, but not in the older one.
Postnatal VD intake abnormality did not impact the anxiety and depressive behavior but was detrimental to spatial learning and hippocampus-dependent memory. At the molecular level we failed to observe an obvious and constant change with the neural development and activity-related genes examined.
However, disrupted developmental expression dynamics were observed for most of the genes, suggesting that the altered neural development dynamics and therefore aberrant adult plasticity might underlie the functional deficits.
Our work highlights the essence of VD homeostasis in neural development and adult brain function. Further studies are needed to determine the short- and long-term effects VD intake status may have on brain development, homeostasis, and diseases.
PMID: 29666565 PMCID: PMC5891641 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00141