The Influence of Parental Experience On Brain Development, Behaviour, and Neuroplasticity

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One of the fundamental questions in behavioural neuroscience relates to how the brain develops to produce our complex motor, social, and cognitive abilities in adulthood. It is now clear that brain development does not follow a blueprint but rather the nascent brain is sculpted by preconception, prenatal, and postnatal experiences to produce a brain that can do marvelous things. But not all brains are the same and there is remarkable variability ranging from brilliance to less than optimal outcomes.Having demonstrated that both positive and negative experiences at different times can influence brain and behavioral development, I propose to systematically examine the effects of such experiences at several developmental time points including preconception (both sires and dams), gestational (dams), perinatal, and adolescence. ***Short term objectives: ***1. Characterization of the lifelong behavioral outcomes of offspring exposed to parental (maternal or paternal) experiences in the preconception and prenatal periods. .***2. Characterization of neuroanatomical outcomes of offspring exposed to parental (maternal or paternal) experiences in the preconception and prenatal periods.***3. Epigenetic analyses of offspring brain and parental germlines (sperm and ova) following parental (maternal or paternal) experiences in the preconception and prenatal periods.***Long Term Objectives: 1. To study the interaction of parental experience with later offspring experience either in the perinatal period or in adolescence.***2. To study how maternal and paternal experiences interact at mating or during gestation to affect brain development in offspring.***3. To determine whether the negative behavioral and anatomical effects of paternal or maternal experiences such as alcohol exposure can be reversed with dietary supplements, tactile stimulation, or complex-housing in the exposed parent or whether the effects of early positive experiences can be reversed by negative experiences (stress, drugs). ***The overall goal of the proposed studies is to understand the “rules” that describe cerebral plasticity and its relation to behavior in development. Little is known about prenatal, including preconception experiences on brain development. Thus, our contributions have addressed the sparsely studied domains of paternal preconception experience and influence of both “positive” and “negative” prenatal (preconception and gestational) experience on offspring outcomes. By using behavioral analyses that span the developmental period to adulthood we have made new insights into how the same experience in either the prenatal or preconception period have altered impacts on offspring brain development and observed behavioral outcomes at different times during development. We seek to better understand the nature of brain development and how experiences interact to contribute to neuroplasticity and behavior. **