Brief ReportPrimate Early Life Stress Leads to Long-Term Mild Hippocampal Decreases in Corticosteroid Receptor Expression
Section snippets
Methods and Materials
For a complete description of methods and materials see Supplement 1.
Early deprivation (ED) comprised separation of infant from parent and isolation in a neutral environment for 30–120 min/day on postnatal Days 2–28. The control procedure (CON) was handling of the infant on the parent. Otherwise, all subjects remained with the family group and were studied longitudinally in terms of physiology and behavior. Subjects were killed at age 48 weeks. There were 11 ED subjects, 7 male and 4 female,
Results
Relative expression levels of MR mRNA were DG > CA1-4 > Cortex > PFC. In hippocampus (Figures 1A–1E), there was a significant main effect of Manipulation, indicating that MR mRNA levels were significantly reduced in ED relative to CON subjects [F(1,16) = 4.38, p = .05], with no effect of Gender (p > .1; Table S1 in Supplement 1). A-posteriori analysis of individual areas revealed a significant reduction in ED versus CON in CA2 [F(1,16) = 7.59, p = .01] (reduction in mean value = −16%) and CA1 [F
Discussion
This study demonstrates that ELS in primate infants leads in adolescence to mild reductions in MR and GR gene expression in hippocampus and not in PFC, cortex, or paraventricular nucleus. The ED and CON siblings had been studied in vivo, and several depression-relevant physiological and behavioral effects had been demonstrated. In adult human probands of unknown early life history, depression is associated with mild–moderate reductions in hippocampal MR (−20%/−30%) (6) and GR (−20%) (6, 9)
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Cited by (0)
Authors DA and RD-H contributed equally to this work.