Poor maternal nutrition during pregnancy is known to impair fetal development. Moreover, the preimplantation period is vulnerable to adverse programming of disease. Here, we investigated the effect of a mouse maternal high-fat diet in healthy non-obese dams during preimplantation or throughout pregnancy and lactation on metabolism-related parameters and hippocampal neurogenesis in adult offspring. Female mice were fed from conception either a normal fat diet (normal fat diet group) or high-fat diet throughout gestation and lactation (high-fat diet group), or high-fat diet only during preimplantation (embryonic high-fat diet group, high-fat diet up to E3.5, normal fat diet thereafter). Maternal high-fat diet caused changes in the offspring, including increased systolic blood pressure, diurnal activity, respiratory quotient, and energy expenditure in high-fat diet females, and increased systolic blood pressure and respiratory quotient but decreased energy expenditure in high-fat diet males. High-fat diet males had a higher density of newborn neurons and a lower density of mature neurons in the dentate gyrus, indicating that exposure to a maternal high-fat diet may regulate adult neurogenesis. A maternal high-fat diet also increased the density of astrocytes and microglia in the hippocampus of high-fat diet males and females. Generally, a graded response (normal fat diet < embryonic high-fat < high-fat diet) was observed, with only 3 days of high-fat diet exposure altering offspring energy metabolism and hippocampal cell density. Thus, early maternal exposure to a fatty diet, well before neural differentiation begins and independently of maternal obesity, is sufficient to perturb offspring energy metabolism and brain physiology with lifetime consequences.
Keywords: brain development; metabolic health; nutrition; offspring long-term health; peri-conception.
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain.