Endocrine Abstracts

Epidemiological evidence suggests that an adverse fetal environment permanently programmes physiology leading to increased risks of cardiometabolic, neuroendocrine and psychiatric disorders in adulthood. We originally hypothesised that prenatal stress via fetal glucocorticoid excess might explain this link. Indeed, in rodents, prenatal stress, glucocorticoid exposure or inhibition/knockout of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 (11β-HSD2), the feto-placental &#14...

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Life events occurring during the perinatal period have strong permanent long-term effects on the behavioural and neuroendocrine response to stressors. In rats, repeated restraint stress of the pregnant dam during the last week of pregnancy produces long lasting changes in the HPA axis function and behaviours in the offspring. These changes include a hyperactivity of HPA axis response associated with a reduction in the number of hippocampal corticosteroid receptors. The HPA dys...

Chronic physical aggression has been linked to cortisol secretion and testosterone. Such links could be programmed by environmental effects on gene expression during pregnancy and early childhood. This paper will review research on the chronic aggression-cortisol-testosterone links and summarize a research program on pre and postnatal epigenetic programming....