Hippocampal Development in a Rat Model of Perigestational Opioid Exposure

Nearly one third of women of reproductive age in the United States are prescribed opioids annually; 14% of women fill an opioid prescription during pregnancy, and one in five report misuse. Opioid use during pregnancy has given rise to an increasing population of infants born with gestational opioid exposure. Although substantial clinical work has focused on treating these infants as they experience opioid withdrawal symptoms at the time of birth, notably few studies have examined the effects of gestational opioid exposure on brain development and long-term cognitive function. During typical brain development, endogenous opioids and their receptors are highly expressed by neural progenitor cells, neurons, and glia where they modulate cell proliferation, differentiation, and maturation. Thus, any disruption to the endogenous opioid system during the critical period of brain development may have lasting consequences on brain cell populations and the behaviors they influence. Indeed, opioid-exposed infants have smaller brains than age-matched peers and show significant neurodevelopmental impairment; they also have higher rates of learning disability at school age. To investigate how exposure to exogenous opioids during brain development affects neural maturation in the hippocampus, a brain region critical for learning and memory, our lab has developed a clinically relevant perigestational morphine exposure rat model. The current study reports that perigestational exposure to morphine delays postnatal hippocampal neuronal maturation, alters astrocyte and oligodendrocyte proliferation, and alters expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein crucial for healthy brain growth. Furthermore, we show that environmental enrichment rescues BDNF deficits, offering evidence for the effectiveness of non-invasive, non-pharmacological intervention for developmental consequences of perigestational opioid exposure.