Maternal Dietary Restriction Alters Offspring’s Sleep Homeostasis

Nutritional state in the gestation period influences fetal growth and development. We hypothesized that undernutrition during gestation would affect offspring sleep architecture and/or homeostasis. Pregnant female mice were assigned to either control (fed ad libitum; AD) or 50% dietary restriction (DR) groups from gestation day 12 to parturition. After parturition, dams were fed AD chow. After weaning, the pups were also fed AD into adulthood. At adulthood (aged 8–9 weeks), we carried out sleep recordings. Although offspring mice displayed a significantly reduced body weight at birth, their weights recovered three days after birth. Enhancement of electroencephalogram (EEG) slow wave activity (SWA) during non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep was observed in the DR mice over a 24-hour period without changing the diurnal pattern or amounts of wake, NREM, or rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. In addition, DR mice also displayed an enhancement of EEG-SWA rebound after a 6-hour sleep deprivation and a higher threshold for waking in the face of external stimuli. DR adult offspring mice exhibited small but significant increases in the expression of hypothalamic peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α (Pparα) and brain-specific carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 (Cpt1c) mRNA, two genes involved in lipid metabolism. Undernutrition during pregnancy may influence sleep homeostasis, with offspring exhibiting greater sleep pressure.