Approximately 3 to 5 percent of women in the United States are affected by preeclampsia. Due to this fact we have decided that studying the embryonic brain is a good method to see how infants may be affected during and after preeclampsia. Using an animal model, we will implant a pump, releasing vasopressin (AVP) into a pregnant mouse, to stimulate an increase in high blood pressure to mimic a human mother during preeclampsia. With this model concurrent with preeclampsia symptoms in pregnant dams, we hypothesize that AVP exposure during pregnancy leads to altered neurodevelopment of offspring.

To analyze our hypothesis, we collected, fixed and sectioned embryonic brain tissue (embryonic days 17.5 and 16.5—E17.5 and E16.5) from mouse offspring. We used immunohistochemistry to stain our tissues in order to view them on a florescent microscope and measure the cortical plate and intermediate zone, two developmental brain regions important for later cognition. We found that changes with preeclampsia at E17.5 were more significant than E16.5, possibly due differences increasing with age. In E17.5 tissue, we noticed that there was a significant decrease in average thickness of these brain regions but an increase in microglial cells within them. These findings suggest that the thickness decrease may be due to the increase in the amount of microglia, cells known to contribute to cortical growth. While the correlation of these two findings did not directly test this possibility, we plan to further research this topic to advance our understanding of these and other consequences of preeclampsia on neurodevelopment.

Keywords: Preeclampsia, Vasopressin