Effects of Maternal Hyperhomocysteinemia on the Early Physical Development and Neurobehavioral Maturation of Rat Offspring

Abstract

During pregnancy, several complications have been associated with hyperhomocysteinemia and elevated homocysteine (Hcy) levels have been shown to play a role in the etiology of preeclampsia, placental abruption, intrauterine growth retardation, and neural tube defects. In the present work we aimed to investigate the effects of maternal Hcy on the development and neurobehavioral maturation of the offspring. On the pups, we performed a follow-up of classical parameters of development such as body weight, eyelid opening, ear unfolding, incisor eruption and the appearance of hair, and subjected the pups to various tests representative of neurobehavioral maturation extending from 4th to 20th postnatal days (righting reflex, negative geotaxis, cliff avoidance, head shake, acoustic startle reflex, free-fall righting, cliff avoidance caused by visual stimulus, olfactory discrimination). We have shown that newborn animals were characterized by lower body weight and higher mortality.