Programming Mental Health: Risk from Adverse Experience for Mothers and Offspring

sentations. Other journals are publishing papers from each of the other symposia: Stress will publish papers from the Early Life Programming symposium, and the Journal of Neuroendocrinology will publish papers from the Maternal Adaptations in Pregnancy and Lactation and Parental Behaviour symposia. The papers in this issue give a current picture of the field of programming of mental health research, addressing the long-term effects of suboptimal environmental conditions on both the mother and her offspring. For the first time, recent studies in women have revealed that the mother is susceptible to programming of her behaviour and mental health during gestation (see Sandman et al., this issue). Pregnancy stress and anxiety alter her cognitive performance, memory and increase her risk of altered maternal caring ability and postpartum depression after birth. Indeed, quality of maternal behaviour is even dependent upon whether the mother gave birth vaginally or by caesarean section [3] . These changes in mental state, along with other physiological (e.g. neuroendocrine) changes, directly and indirectly impact on the developing embryo/fetus and later the neonate. This can lead to altered behaviour and mental health of the offspring both during pregnancy (in parallel with the mother) and for many years following birth (Sandman et al.). Environmental conditions have long been known to affect behaviour, mood, mental state and cognition in adults and children. Likewise, exposure to stress during pregnancy and its long-term adverse effects on fetal programming are becoming well understood, especially for consequences such as cardiovascular disease, obesity and depression [1] . However, what is now emerging is an appreciation that programming of mental health also occurs, and that it can be initiated during gestation, having profound harmful effects on both the maternal and offspring brains [2] . International expertise in parental and offspring neurophysiology was brought together at The Parental Brain IV: Neurobiology Behaviour and the Next Generation, held in Edinburgh on September 1–4, 2010. The local organising committee was chaired by Alison Douglas and John Russell and included Simone Meddle, Megan Holmes and Paula Brunton, supported by a broad International Scientific Advisory Board representing all the major parental brain research groups around the world. This special issue of Neuroendocrinology gathers together the conference presentations on Perinatal Influence on Mental Health in the format of timely reviews. This was one of the four main themes of the conference, which attracted 24 symposium speakers and 3 plenary lectures; there were also 16 oral communications and 23 datablitz prePublished online: February 22, 2012