Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Feb 12:15:635304.
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.635304. eCollection 2021.

Maternal Distress and Offspring Neurodevelopment: Challenges and Opportunities for Pre-clinical Research Models

Eamon Fitzgerald  1   2 , Carine Parent  1   2 , Michelle Z L Kee  3 , Michael J Meaney  1   2   3   4
Affiliations

Maternal Distress and Offspring Neurodevelopment: Challenges and Opportunities for Pre-clinical Research Models

Eamon Fitzgerald et al. Front Hum Neurosci. .

Abstract

Pre-natal exposure to acute maternal trauma or chronic maternal distress can confer increased risk for psychiatric disorders in later life. Acute maternal trauma is the result of unforeseen environmental or personal catastrophes, while chronic maternal distress is associated with anxiety or depression. Animal studies investigating the effects of pre-natal stress have largely used brief stress exposures during pregnancy to identify critical periods of fetal vulnerability, a paradigm which holds face validity to acute maternal trauma in humans. While understanding these effects is undoubtably important, the literature suggests maternal stress in humans is typically chronic and persistent from pre-conception through gestation. In this review, we provide evidence to this effect and suggest a realignment of current animal models to recapitulate this chronicity. We also consider candidate mediators, moderators and mechanisms of maternal distress, and suggest a wider breadth of research is needed, along with the incorporation of advanced -omics technologies, in order to understand the neurodevelopmental etiology of psychiatric risk.

Keywords: maternal distress; neurodevelopment; pre-clinical models; pregnancy; psychiatric disorders.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

References

    1. Abe H., Hidaka N., Kawagoe C., Odagiri K., Watanabe Y., Ikeda T., et al. (2007). Prenatal psychological stress causes higher emotionality, depression-like behavior, and elevated activity in the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis. Neurosci. Res. 59, 145–151. 10.1016/j.neures.2007.06.1465 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Akatsu S., Ishikawa C., Takemura K., Ohtani A., Shiga T. (2015). Effects of prenatal stress and neonatal handling on anxiety, spatial learning and serotonergic system of male offspring mice. Neurosci. Res. 101, 15–23. 10.1016/j.neures.2015.07.002 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Almeida F. B., Nin M. S., Barros H. M. T. (2020). The role of allopregnanolone in depressive-like behaviors: focus on neurotrophic proteins. Neurobiol. Stress 12:100218. 10.1016/j.ynstr.2020.100218 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Al-Safadi S., Branchaud M., Rutherford S., Amir S. (2015). Glucocorticoids and stress-induced changes in the expression of PERIOD1 in the rat forebrain. PLoS ONE 10:e0130085. 10.1371/journal.pone.0130085 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alves de Lima K., Rustenhoven J., Da Mesquita S., Wall M., Salvador A. F., Smirnov I., et al. (2020). Meningeal γδ T cells regulate anxiety-like behavior via IL-17a signaling in neurons. Nat. Immunol. 21, 1421–1429. 10.1038/s41590-020-0776-4 - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources