Epigenetic Programming by Maternal Behavior in the Human Infant

An Epigenetic Pilot Study Investigating Biomarkers in Maternal-Infant Pairs

Epigenetic programming by maternal behavior and pharmacological intervention. Nature versus nurture: let's call the whole thing off.

The nature of maternal care that an infant receives can effect the child's emotional and cognitive development, which is endured into adulthood. Similarly, maternal behavior in rodents is associated with long-term programming of individual differences in behavioral and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal responses to stress in the offspring. One critical question is how is such 'environmental progra...

Atypical maternal behavior, maternal representations, and infant disorganized attachment.

The data for 197 mother-infant pairs from two longitudinal studies were analyzed to assess relations between maternal attachment representations; atypical maternal behavior, coded with a new tool. Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrument for Assessment and Classification (AMBIANCE), and infant attachment. Both maternal and infant attachment were systematically related to atypical maternal behavior...

Epigenetic programming of stress responses through variations in maternal care.

Early life experiences shape an individual's physical and mental health across the lifespan. Not surprisingly, an upbringing that is associated with adversity can produce detrimental effects on health. A central theme that arises from studies in human and nonhuman species is that the effects of adversity are mediated by the interactions between a mother and her young. In this review we describe...

Programming of infant neurodevelopment by maternal obesity: potential role of maternal inflammation and insulin resistance.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Recent studies show that maternal obesity is associated with impaired offspring neurodevelopmental outcomes. The mechanism underlying the association is unclear. However, there is evidence to suggest a role for intra-uterine exposure to inflammation and insulin resistance (IR). We aimed to determine if maternal IR and inflammation were associated to fetal neurodevelopm...