Fall 2023: Clinician Investigator Trainee Association of Canada (CITAC).

This has been a great first half of the year for CITAC-ACCFC (Clinician Investigator Trainee Association of Canada/Association des cliniciens-chercheurs en formation du Canada)! We are looking forward to our new members joining us in the fall and welcoming back our previous members after the summer.

Noise exposure in early adulthood causes age-dependent and brain region-specific impairments in cognitive function.

Hearing loss is a chronic health condition that affects millions of people worldwide. In addition to age-related hearing impairment, excessive noise exposure is a leading cause of hearing loss. Beyond the devastating effects of hearing impairment itself, epidemiological studies have identified hearing loss as a major risk factor for age-related cognitive decline, including dementia. At present, we currently lack a full understanding of the brain regions and underlying molecular changes that are responsible for mediating the link between hearing loss and cognitive impairment across aging. In the present study, we exposed 6-month-old rats to an occupational-like noise (100 dB SPL, 4 h/day × 30 days) or sham exposure and investigated both hippocampal-dependent (i.e., spatial learning and memory, assessed using the Morris water maze) and striatal-dependent (i.e., visuomotor associative learning, assessed using an operant-conditioning task) cognitive function across aging at 7, 10, and 13 months of age. We also investigated brain region-specific changes in microglial expression following noise/sham exposure in order to assess the potential contribution of this cell type to noise-induced cognitive impairments. Consistent with human studies, the occupational-like noise exposure resulted in high-frequency hearing loss, evidenced by a significant increase in hearing thresholds at 20 kHz. Ultimately, our results suggest that not all higher-level cognitive tasks or their associated brain regions appear to be equally susceptible to noise-induced deficits during aging, as the occupational-like noise exposure caused an age-dependent deficit in spatial but not visuomotor associative learning, as well as altered microglial expression in the hippocampus but not the striatum. Interestingly, we found no significant relationships between spatial learning ability and the level of hearing loss or altered microglial density in the hippocampus following noise exposure, suggesting that other changes in the brain likely contribute to hippocampal-dependent cognitive dysfunction following noise exposure. Lastly, we found that a subset of younger animals also showed noise-induced deficits in spatial learning; findings which suggest that noise exposure may represent an increased risk for cognitive impairment in vulnerable subjects. Overall, our findings highlight that even a mild occupational-like noise exposure earlier in adulthood can have long lasting implications for cognitive function later in life.

Interleukin 15 modulates the effects of poly I:C maternal immune activation on offspring behaviour.

Maternal infections during pregnancy are linked with an increased risk for disorders like Autism Spectrum Disorder and schizophrenia in the offspring. Although precise mechanisms are still unclear, clinical and preclinical evidence suggest a strong role for maternal immune activation (MIA) in the neurodevelopmental disruptions caused by maternal infection. Previously, studies using the Polyinosinic:Polycytidylic (Poly I:C) MIA preclinical model showed that cytokines like Interleukin 6 (Il6) are important mediators of MIA's effects. In this study, we hypothesized that Il15 may similarly act as a mediator of Poly I:C MIA, given its role in the antiviral immune response. To test this hypothesis, we induced Poly I:C MIA at gestational day 9.5 in wildtype (WT) and Il15 -/- rat dams and tested their offspring in adolescence and adulthood. Poly I:C MIA and Il15 knockout produced both independent and synergistic effects on offspring behaviour. Poly I:C MIA decreased startle reactivity in adult WT offspring but resulted in increased adolescent anxiety and decreased adult locomotor activity in Il15 -/- offspring. In addition, Poly I:C MIA led to genotype-independent effects on locomotor activity and prepulse inhibition. Finally, we showed that Il15 -/- offspring exhibit distinct phenotypes that were unrelated to Poly I:C MIA including altered startle reactivity, locomotion and signal transduction in the auditory brainstem. Overall, our findings indicate that the lack of Il15 can leave offspring either more or less susceptible to Poly I:C MIA, depending on the phenotype in question. Future studies should examine the contribution of fetal versus maternal Il15 in MIA to determine the precise developmental mechanisms underlying these changes.

Differential Plasticity in Auditory and Prefrontal Cortices, and Cognitive-Behavioral Deficits Following Noise-Induced Hearing Loss.

Excessive exposure to loud noise causes hearing loss and neural plasticity throughout the auditory pathway. Recent studies have identified that non-auditory regions, such as the hippocampus, are also susceptible to noise exposure; however, the electrophysiological and behavioral consequences of noise-induced hearing loss on the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are unclear. Using chronically-implanted electrodes in awake rats, we investigated neural plasticity in the auditory and prefrontal cortices in the days following noise exposure via metrics associated with spontaneous neural oscillations and the 40-Hz auditory steady-state response (ASSR). Noise exposure did not alter the profile of spontaneous oscillations in either of the cortices, yet it caused a differential plasticity in the sound-evoked activity, which was characterized by enhanced event-related potentials (ERPs) in the auditory cortex (i.e., central gain), and decreased inter-trial coherence (ITC) of the 40-Hz ASSR within the PFC. Moreover, phase synchrony between auditory and prefrontal cortices was decreased post-exposure, suggesting a reduction in functional connectivity. Cognitive-behavioral testing using the Morris water maze and a series of lever-pressing tasks revealed that noise exposure impaired spatial learning and reference memory, as well as stimulus-response habit learning, whereas cognitive flexibility tasks requiring set-shifting and reversal learning appeared unaffected. Collectively, our findings identify the complex and region-specific cortical plasticity associated with noise-induced hearing loss, and highlight the varying degrees of susceptibility of non-auditory, cognitive tasks of learning, memory and executive function to noise exposure.

Maternal Immune Activation by Poly I:C as a preclinical Model for Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A focus on Autism and Schizophrenia.

Maternal immune activation (MIA) in response to a viral infection during early and mid-gestation has been linked through various epidemiological studies to a higher risk for the child to develop autism or schizophrenia-related symptoms.. This has led to the establishment of the pathogen-free poly I:C-induced MIA animal model for neurodevelopmental disorders, which shows relatively high construct and face validity. Depending on the experimental variables, particularly the timing of poly I:C administration, different behavioural and molecular phenotypes have been described that relate to specific symptoms of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder and/or schizophrenia. We here review and summarize epidemiological evidence for the effects of maternal infection and immune activation, as well as major findings in different poly I:C MIA models with a focus on poly I:C exposure timing, behavioural and molecular changes in the offspring, and characteristics of the model that relate it to autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.