Schizophrenia (SCZ) is believed to be a neurodevelopmental disorder resulting from genetic and environmental factors. Obstetric complications, particularly fetal hypoxia, seem to be a risk factor for SCZ. The hippocampus is highly sensitive to ischemic episodes, and there is substantial evidence for hippocampal malfunction in SCZ. Thus, utilizing a rat model of global anoxia (15 min and 21 min) during Cesarean-section birth (C-section), hippocampal proliferation was examined in the dentate gyrus and CAI region at postnatal day 21 and day 60. Incorporation of 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine (BrdU) was used as a marker of cell proliferation. Rats were sacrificed 2 hours after BrdU injection to quantify cell proliferation, or 4 weeks after BrdU injection to quantify survival of newly proliferating cells and to identify if these cells express a neuronal phenotype. Only rats that had undergone 15 minutes of hypoxia during C-section birth compared to C-sectioned controls, showed a significant increase in cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus on postnatal day 21. Thus perinatal hypoxia can have lasting effects on the hippocampus that depend on the duration of the hypoxic insult.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.101594 |
| Date | January 2006 |
| Creators | Labban, Margaret. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Division of Neuroscience.) |
| Rights | © Margaret Labban, 2006 |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002588423, proquestno: AAIMR32735, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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