Enhanced sensitivity to drugs of abuse and palatable foods following maternal overnutrition

Epidemiological studies have shown an association between maternal overnutrition and increased risk of the progeny for the development of obesity as well as psychiatric disorders. Animal studies have shown results regarding maternal high-fat diet (HFD) and a greater risk of the offspring to develop obesity. However, it still remains unknown whether maternal HFD can program the central reward system in such a way that it will imprint long-term changes that will predispose the offspring to addictive-like behaviors that may lead to obesity. We exposed female dams to either laboratory chow or HFD for a period of 9 weeks: 3 weeks before conception, during gestation and lactation. Offspring born to either control or HFD-exposed dams were examined in behavioral, neurochemical, neuroanatomical, metabolic and positron emission tomography (PET) scan tests. Our results demonstrate that HFD offspring compared with controls consume more alcohol, exhibit increased sensitivity to amphetamine and show greater conditioned place preference to cocaine. In addition, maternal HFD leads to increased preference to sucrose as well as to HFD while leaving the general feeding behavior intact. The hedonic behavioral alterations are accompanied by reduction of striatal dopamine and by increased dopamine 2 receptors in the same brain region as evaluated by post-mortem neurochemical, immunohistochemical as well as PET analyses. Taken together, our data suggest that maternal overnutrition predisposes the offspring to develop hedonic-like behaviors to both drugs of abuse as well as palatable foods and that these types of behaviors may share common neuronal underlying mechanisms that can lead to obesity.