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The Fetal Origins of Adult Mental Illness

  • Chapter
Early Life Origins of Health and Disease

Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 573))

Abstract

This chapter critically examines the hypothesis that the origins of some adult mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, which is the focus of this review, derive from adverse events in utero, such as maternal nutrition deficiency, infection and hypoxia. The hypothesis was originally derived from neuropathological changes in patients with established schizophrenia that are highly suggestive of impaired neural development occurring around mid-gestation. Increasingly it appears that gestational timing and the severity of the insult, rather than type of insult, plays a critical role in subsequent behavioural outcome. Supporting the neurodevelopmental hypothesis, recent studies have demonstrated that serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and afferent disorders are associated firstly with behavioural abnormalities that are present from early childhood, and secondly with ongoing neural injury on serial magnetic resonance imaging through late childhood and adolescence. These data suggest that alterations in brain development during fetal life lead to an evolving damage over the course of childhood before finally being overtly expressed in early adulthood. Current data suggest that the initial loss of cells in utero leads to a long-term remodelling of the brain that is mediated by upregulation of physiological apoptosis. That such adult illnesses present with early behavioural and physiological clues, are progressive and not static in nature, and that the process is potentially governed by common mechanisms regardless of cause, offers significant new opportunities for intervention and treatment.

“I am a crooked, twisted piece of humanity. The sooner I die the better. God will relieve me from my sufferings, as I really cannot stand it.” —Voices of the mad: Patients letters from the Royal Edinburgh Asylum 1873–1908. Allan Beveridge.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Laura Bennet

  2. Fetal Physiology and Neuroscience Group Department of Physiology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Alistair J. Gunn

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  1. Laura Bennet
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  2. Alistair J. Gunn
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Correspondence to Laura Bennet .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia

    E. Marelyn Wintour

  2. Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia

    Julie A. Owens

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Bennet, L., Gunn, A.J. (2006). The Fetal Origins of Adult Mental Illness. In: Wintour, E.M., Owens, J.A. (eds) Early Life Origins of Health and Disease. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 573. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-32632-4_17

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