A reduction in voluntary physical activity in early pregnancy in mice is mediated by prolactin
- University of Otago, New Zealand
Abstract
As part of the maternal adaptations to pregnancy, mice show a rapid, profound reduction in voluntary running wheel activity (RWA) as soon as pregnancy is achieved. Here, we evaluate the hypothesis that prolactin, one of the first hormones to change secretion pattern following mating, is involved in driving this suppression of physical activity levels during pregnancy. We show that prolactin can acutely suppress RWA in non-pregnant female mice, and that conditional deletion of prolactin receptors (Prlr) from either most forebrain neurons or from GABA neurons prevented the early pregnancy-induced suppression of RWA. Deletion of Prlr specifically from the medial preoptic area, a brain region associated with multiple homeostatic and behavioural roles including parental behaviour, completely abolished the early pregnancy-induced suppression of RWA. As pregnancy progresses, prolactin action continues to contribute to the further suppression of RWA, although it is not the only factor involved. Our data demonstrate a key role for prolactin in suppressing voluntary physical activity during early pregnancy, highlighting a novel biological basis for reduced physical activity in pregnancy.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files. Source data files have been provided for Figures 4-6.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Health Research Council of New Zealand (14-568)
- David R Grattan
University of Otago
- Sharon R Ladyman
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the Animal Welfare Act (1999) New Zealand. All experimental protocols were approved by the University of Otago Animal Ethics Committee (Animal Use Protocol 36-17).
Copyright
© 2021, Ladyman et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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A reduction in voluntary physical activity in early pregnancy in mice is mediated by prolactin
eLife 10:e62260.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62260
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