RESEARCHERS IN Dublin have confirmed that women whose mothers experienced stress during pregnancy face a higher risk of depression in later life.
Stress occurring during the last months of pregnancy could actually alter normal foetal brain growth, in turn leading to the increased risk of psychological disorders, according to Dr Áine Behan of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
The college yesterday released details of the study which is published in the European Neuropsychopharmacology Journal.
This was the first time that a direct link between third trimester stress and changes in brain development has been shown in a mouse model, said Dr Behan of the college’s department of physiology and joint lead author of the study with Prof David Cotter in the department of psychiatry.
Unusually, the effect was only seen in female offspring and not in males, she said.
The work is based on the use of mouse models, but separate human studies had also shown a link between stress during later pregnancy and structural changes in the brain, she said. They found the stress caused a significant reduction in the number of brain cells known as glial cells. Glial cells are formed in the foetal brain during the last third of the pregnancy. They provide support for the nerve cells, Dr Behan said.
Human studies have shown that patients suffering with depressive disorders including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and autism also have lower than normal numbers of glial cells, she said.
The model should prove valuable as a way to test drugs that can counteract the effects of stress proteins, Dr Behan said.
The research included a team from the University of Maastricht. Funding came from Science Foundation Ireland, the Wellcome Trust and the EU.