Fig. 3.

Gestational stress decreases mitochondrial respiration in the prefrontal cortex but not nucleus accumbens. (A) In prefrontal cortex (PFC), there was a significant interaction and main effect of stress, with no main effect of parity, on complex I (CI) (interaction: p = 0.01, stress: p = 0.02, parity: p = 0.15), complex I + II coupled (CI + CII) (interaction: p = 0.02, stress: p = 0.005, parity: p = 0.2), and maximal (ETS) (interaction: p = 0.02, stress: p = 0.007, parity: p = 0.14) respiration, where post hoc analyses demonstrated significantly decreased respiration in all measures in P + S dams compared to P dams ((CI) P vs. P + S: p = 0.004, (CI + CII) P vs. P + S: p = 0.002, (ETS) P vs. P + S: p = 0.003). n = 8–11/group. (B) In PFC, there was a trend for an interaction of stress and parity on complex II respiration (p = 0.06) and a significant main effect of stress (p = 0.04), but no main effect of parity (p = 0.21), although post hoc analyses revealed lower respiration in P + S compared to P dams (p = 0.02). n = 8–11/group. (C) There were no significant differences observed between groups in PFC mitochondrial content, as measured by CI + II/ETS-linked capacity (interaction: p = 0.62, stress: p = 0.63, parity: p = 0.72). n = 8–11/group. (D) In nucleus accumbens (NAc), there were no significant interactions or main effects of stress or parity on CI, CI + CII, or ETS respiration (see Supplementary Table 1 for statistical details). n = 9–11/group. C = nulliparous controls, S = nulliparous stressed, P = primiparous controls, and P + S = primiparous stressed. All data are represented as mean ± SEM. *p ≤ 0.05, **p ≤ 0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001, ****p ≤ 0.0001.