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Prenatal stress effects on offspring brain and behavior: Mediators, alterations and dysregulated epigenetic

Shams Ul Haq1, Unis Ahmad Bhat, Arvind Kumar

  • 1CSIR- Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Uppal Road, Hyderabad 500 007, India.

Journal of Biosciences
|April 16, 2021
PubMed

Insights

Adverse prenatal conditions, including maternal stress, can alter fetal brain development, leading to lifelong health issues and increased risk for neuropsychiatric disorders in offspring. Key mediators like cortisol play a crucial role in this developmental programming.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Developmental Biology
  • Psychiatry

Background:

  • Prenatal environmental factors significantly impact mammalian fetal development.
  • Adverse in utero conditions are linked to long-term health consequences for offspring.
  • Prenatal stress is a known risk factor for neuropsychiatric disorders.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To review the mediators involved in stress transfer from mother to fetus.
  • To examine the role of these mediators in fetal programming.
  • To detail the brain alterations resulting from prenatal stress and their impact on offspring.

Main Methods:

  • Review of existing literature on prenatal stress and fetal development.
  • Analysis of mediators such as cortisol, serotonin, cytokines, ROS, and maternal microbiota.
  • Focus on molecular, cellular, and structural brain changes in offspring.

Main Results:

  • Prenatal stress involves multiple mediators, with cortisol being a primary one.
  • Prenatal stress induces alterations in the offspring brain at molecular, cellular, and structural levels.
  • These changes result in lasting phenotypic alterations, including behavioral and cognitive deficits.

Conclusions:

  • Prenatal stress significantly impacts fetal development, programming offspring for lifelong health risks.
  • Mediators like cortisol, serotonin, cytokines, ROS, and maternal microbiota are key in this process.
  • Epigenetic mechanisms are central to how prenatal stress affects neural gene expression and brain development.

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