Lithium protects against glucocorticoid induced neural progenitor cell apoptosis in the developing cerebellum.

Abstract Respiratory dysfunction is one of the most common causes of death associated with premature birth ( Barton et al., 1999 ). In the United States, 7–10% of pregnant women receive antenatal glucocorticoid (GC) therapy ( Matthews et al., 2004 ), while approximately 19% of very low birth weight infants receive postnatal GC therapy ( Jobe, 2009 ). Clinical research suggests that GC treatment causes permanent neuromotor and cognitive deficits ( Yeh et al., 2004 ) and stunts cerebellar growth ( Parikh et al., 2007 , Tam et al., 2011 ). We previously reported that GC-mediated neural progenitor cell (NPC) apoptosis may be responsible for cerebellar neuropathology ( Maloney et al., 2011 , Noguchi et al., 2008 , Noguchi et al., 2011 ). The goal of the current study was to determine whether lithium protects NPCs from GC neuroapoptosis in vivo and in vitro . Given that it protects against a range of brain insults, we hypothesized that lithium would significantly attenuate GC induced NPC toxicity. We report that acute lithium pretreatment provides potent, cell-intrinsic neuroprotection against GC induced NPC toxicity in vivo and in vitro .