Prolonged febrile seizures induce inheritable memory deficits in rats through DNA methylation.

ABSTRACT:

Aims

Febrile seizures (FSs) are the most common types of seizures in young children. However, little is known whether the memory deficits induced by early-life FSs could transmit across generations or not.

Methods

The memory functions of different generations of FS rats were behaviorally evaluated by morris water maze, inhibitory avoidance task, and contextual fear conditioning task. Meanwhile, molecular biology and pharmacological methods were used to investigate the role of DNA methylation in transgenerational transmission of memory defects.

Results

Prolonged FSs in infant rats resulted in memory deficits in adult and transgenerationally transmitted to next generation, which was mainly through mothers. For these two generations, DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) 1 was up

SUBMITTER: Dai YJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6488897 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature