Perinatal stress and human hippocampal volume: Findings from typically developing young adults

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to investigate the impact of prenatal and early postnatal stress on hippocampal volume in young adulthood. In sharp contrast to numerous results in animal models, our data from a neuroimaging follow-up (n = 131) of a community-based birth cohort from the Czech Republic (European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood) showed that in typically developing young adults, hippocampal volume was not associated with birth weight, stressful life events during the prenatal or early postnatal period, or dysregulated mood and wellbeing in the mother during the early postnatal period. Interestingly, mother’s anxiety/co-dependence during the first weeks after birth did show long-lasting effects on the hippocampal volume in young adult offspring irrespective of sex. Further analyses revealed that these effects were subfield-specific; present in CA1, CA2/3, CA4, GC-DG, subiculum, molecular layer, and HATA, hippocampal subfields identified by translational research as most stress- and glucocorticoid-sensitive, but not in the remaining subfields. Our findings provide evidence that the type of early stress is critical when studying its effects on the human brain.

Prenatal Maternal Stress From a Natural Disaster and Hippocampal Volumes: Gene-by-Environment Interactions in Young Adolescents From Project Ice Storm

“…First, we examined the main effect of each component of PNMS on hippocampal volume. The previous literature reported associations between increased prenatal maternal anxiety and reduced hippocampal growth (Qiu et al, 2013), and the non-association between perinatal stressful life events and hippocampal volume (Marečková et al, 2018). Surprisingly, then, we found that higher maternal objective hardship was associated with larger, not smaller, right hippocampal volume in girls.…”

“…In humans, Qiu et al (2013) have demonstrated that increased maternal anxiety during pregnancy was associated with reduced hippocampal growth in the offspring's first 6 months of life, suggesting that maternal anxiety during pregnancy predicts differences in hippocampal development; however, it remains unclear whether it is the heritable trait of anxiety or exposure to maternal stress hormones in the intrauterine environment that precipitates this effect. Recent research yields inconsistent results, such that stressful life events during the prenatal or early postnatal period were not associated with hippocampal volume (Marečková et al, 2018). Many studies have also investigated the effect of postnatal stress on hippocampal structure in humans.…”

Depression's Unholy Trinity: Dysregulated Stress, Immunity, and the Microbiome

“…Moreover, clinical neuroimaging studies have revealed volumetric reductions in the hippocampus in depression (Treadway et al 2015). Thus, repeated and severe stress exposure, particularly during sensitive periods of neurodevelopment, promotes the reprogramming of the hippocampus, inducing long-lasting alterations that might determine, often in a sex-specific fashion (Bale & Epperson 2015), the response to future stressors (Marečková et al 2018) that may contribute to some stress-related depressive-like phenotypes.…”

Stress – (self) eating: Epigenetic regulation of autophagy in response to psychological stress

“…These changes pose as a risk factor for the development of neuropsychiatric pathophysiological conditions such as depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), personality disorders etc. .…”