Prenatal loud music and noise: differential impact on physiological arousal, hippocampal synaptogenesis and spatial behavior in one day-old chicks

PLoS One. 2013 Jul 5;8(7):e67347. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067347. Print 2013.

Abstract

Prenatal auditory stimulation in chicks with species-specific sound and music at 65 dB facilitates spatial orientation and learning and is associated with significant morphological and biochemical changes in the hippocampus and brainstem auditory nuclei. Increased noradrenaline level due to physiological arousal is suggested as a possible mediator for the observed beneficial effects following patterned and rhythmic sound exposure. However, studies regarding the effects of prenatal high decibel sound (110 dB; music and noise) exposure on the plasma noradrenaline level, synaptic protein expression in the hippocampus and spatial behavior of neonatal chicks remained unexplored. Here, we report that high decibel music stimulation moderately increases plasma noradrenaline level and positively modulates spatial orientation, learning and memory of one day-old chicks. In contrast, noise at the same sound pressure level results in excessive increase of plasma noradrenaline level and impairs the spatial behavior. Further, to assess the changes at the molecular level, we have quantified the expression of functional synapse markers: synaptophysin and PSD-95 in the hippocampus. Compared to the controls, both proteins show significantly increased expressions in the music stimulated group but decrease in expressions in the noise group. We propose that the differential increase of plasma noradrenaline level and altered expression of synaptic proteins in the hippocampus are responsible for the observed behavioral consequences following prenatal 110 dB music and noise stimulation.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acoustic Stimulation*
  • Animals
  • Animals, Newborn
  • Arousal / physiology
  • Corticosterone / blood
  • Female
  • Hippocampus / physiology
  • Maze Learning
  • Music*
  • Noise*
  • Norepinephrine / blood
  • Pregnancy
  • Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects*
  • Protein Binding
  • Spatial Behavior / physiology
  • Synapses / physiology
  • Synaptophysin / metabolism

Substances

  • Synaptophysin
  • Corticosterone
  • Norepinephrine

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Goverment of India, grant number: BT/PR10651/Med/30/102/2008. (URL 1: http://dbt-neuro.ncbs.res.in/node/12; URL 2: http://dbtindia.nic.in/index.asp). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.