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Prenatal Programming of Mental Illness: Current Understanding of Relationship and Mechanisms

  • Women's Mental Health (D Rubinow, Section Editor)
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Abstract

The British epidemiologist Dr. David J. Barker documented the relationship between infant birth weight and later onset of hypertension, coronary heart disease, insulin resistance, and type II diabetes. A stressful in utero environment can cause long-term consequences for offspring through prenatal programming. Prenatal programming most commonly occurs through epigenetic mechanisms and can be dependent on the type and timing of exposure as well as the sex of the fetus. In this review, we highlight the most recent evidence that prenatal programming is implicated in the development of psychiatric disorders in offspring exposed to maternal stress during pregnancy. Methodological differences between studies contribute to unavoidable heterogeneity in study findings. Current data suggest that fetal exposure to maternal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysregulation, excessive glucocorticoids, and inflammation with resulting epigenetic changes at both the placental and fetal levels are important areas of continued investigation.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is supported by funding from NIMH grant MH09910 (P.I. Epperson and Bale), grant NIMH K23 MH092399 (P.I. Kim) and grants MH073030, MH087597, and MH091258 (P.I. Bale).

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Conflict of Interest

Deborah R. Kim declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Tracy L. Bale declares that she has no conflict of interest.

C. Neill Epperson has received consultancy fees and paid travel accommodations from UmeCrine Mood, expert testimony fees from Forrest, and grants from Shire and has stock options in Pfizer, Merck, AbbVie, Abbot, and Johnson & Johnson.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Penn Center for Women’s Behavioral Wellness, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Deborah R. Kim & C. Neill Epperson

  2. Department of Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Tracy L. Bale

  3. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    C. Neill Epperson

  4. Room 3050, 3535 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    Deborah R. Kim

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  1. Deborah R. Kim
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Correspondence to Deborah R. Kim.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Women’s Mental Health

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Kim, D.R., Bale, T.L. & Epperson, C.N. Prenatal Programming of Mental Illness: Current Understanding of Relationship and Mechanisms. Curr Psychiatry Rep 17, 5 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11920-014-0546-9

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