碩士 / 國立中興大學 / 獸醫學系暨研究所 / 96 / Pregnancy and mothering lead to be hormonal, neurological and behavioral changes that are essential for successful reproduction. The mother must adapt to the demands of her offspring and the localization of food, water and nest within a short time. Recent studies have shown that pregnancy and mothering affect not only brain areas associated with the expression of maternal behavior such as the medial preoptic area, the basolateral and medial amygdala but also the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. These findings prompted us to investigate whether motherhood permanently altered the receiving structures-dendritic spines of neurons of the primary sensorimotor cortex and hippocampus. Here we studied the dendrites of the output neurons, namely layer III and V pyramidal neurons of sensorimotor cortex and CA1 pyramidal neurons using intracellular dye injection technique. Results show that neurons of both brain areas of the pregnant, lactating and postpartum (63days) rats had more dendritic spines than those of the proestrus nulliparous rats. In addition, pregnant, lactating rats also performed significantly better in Morris water maze and displayed higher sensitivity on hot plate test than nulliparous rats. Taken together, our results suggest that plastic changes of the dendrites of the output neurons of the sensorimotor cortex and hippocampus might underlie the behavioral enhancement associated with reproductive experience and active maternity in female rats.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TW/096NCHU5541035 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Seh Hong Lim, 林世煌 |
| Contributors | Jeng-Rung Chen, 陳建榮 |
| Source Sets | National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan |
| Language | zh-TW |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Format | 32 |
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