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ISDN2014_0055: Prenatal maternal stress from a natural disaster predicts hippocampus volumes in males at age 11: Project Ice Storm
Author(s) -
Dufoix R.,
Charil A.,
Laplante D.P.,
Paus T.,
Pruessner J.,
King S.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal of developmental neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.761
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1873-474X
pISSN - 0736-5748
DOI - 10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2015.04.042
Subject(s) - library science , research center , sociology , history , political science , law , computer science
The hippocampus develops primarily during the fetal period and plays a pivotal role in learning and memory. Nonhuman primate studies have demonstrated that early and late in utero exposure to maternal stress results in reduced hippocampal volumes. However, no human prospective studies of the effects of prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) on the hippocampal development have been conducted. Objective: To determine whether in utero exposure to disasterrelated PNMS is associated with altered hippocampal volumes in 111⁄2-year-old children. We hypothesized that higher maternal objective and/or subjective PNMS levels would be related to smaller hippocampal volumes. Methods: Measures of maternal objective (i.e., events the women experienced) and subjective (i.e., the women’s psychological response to the crisis) PNMS were obtained after the 1998 Quebec Ice Storm. We obtained T1-weighted images of 33 males and 32 female 111⁄2 year olds. Hippocampal segmentations from native MRI scans were performed using the automatic SACHA method. The number of obstetric complications was recorded using hospital records. Results: Overall, more obstetric complications were related to smaller right hippocampal volumes (RHCV. Higher levels of maternal objective PNMS were related to smaller RHCV in males only. Inspection of the objective hardship × obstetric complication interaction revealed that males exposed to high levels of objective hardship or obstetric complications or both had smaller RHCV compared to males exposed to low levels of objective hardship and obstetric complications. Conclusions: Our results suggest that higher levels of disasterrelated objective PNMS, but not subjective PNMS are related to smaller RHCV in male but not female adolescents. It remains to be determined whether this alteration in RHCV in 111⁄2 years old males is related to observable phenotypes. Acknowledgements: This research was funded by grants from the March of Dimes foundation and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.