| Sumario: | Obesity or maternal overnutrition during pregnancy and lactation might have long-term consequences in offspring health. Fetal programming is characterized by adaptive responses to specific environmental conditions during early life stages. Programming
alters gene expression through epigenetic modifications leading to a transgenerational effect of behavioral phenotypes in the
offspring. Maternal intake of hypercaloric diets during fetal development programs aberrant behaviors resembling addiction in
offspring. Programming by hypercaloric surplus sets a gene expression pattern modulating axonal pruning, synaptic signaling, and
synaptic plasticity in selective regions of the reward system. Likewise, fetal programming can promote an inflammatory phenotype
in peripheral and central sites through different cell types such as microglia and T and B cells, which contribute to disrupted energy
sensing and behavioral pathways. Te molecular mechanism that regulates the central and peripheral immune cross-talk during
fetal programming and its relevance on offspring’s addictive behavior susceptibility is still unclear. Here, we review the most relevant
scientific reports about the impact of hypercaloric nutritional fetal programming on central and peripheral inflammation and its
effects on addictive behavior of the offspring.
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