Background
Expression of mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) and glucocorticoid receptor (GR) genes
are moderately reduced in several brain regions in depression. These reductions could
be partly due to early life stress (ELS), which predicts emotional disorders. Controlled
primate studies are important to test whether ELS sufficient to induce long-term emotional
changes also induces long-term altered MR and/or GR brain expression.
Methods
In the common marmoset, ELS of daily 30–120-min social isolation across month-1 resulted
in some long-term changes in homeostasis and emotional behavior. In some of these
same subjects, the aim of this study was to use marmoset-specific riboprobes to determine
whether ELS produced long-term effects on brain MR and GR gene expression.
Results
At adolescence, relative to control subjects, ELS marmosets exhibited mildly reduced
messenger RNA signal for both MR (−15%, p = .05) and GR (−13%, p = .02) in hippocampus—primarily CA1-2—but not in prefrontal cortex, other cortical
regions, or hypothalamus.
Conclusions
In adolescent marmoset monkey brains, reduced hippocampal expression of MR and GR
are consistent chronic-indicators of ELS. It is unlikely that these chronic, mild,
specific reductions were acute-mediators of the observed long-term emotional effects
of ELS. However, they do suggest involvement of hippocampal MR/GR in the neurodevelopmental
effects of ELS.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: February 05, 2010
Accepted:
December 14,
2009
Received in revised form:
October 16,
2009
Received:
August 3,
2009
Footnotes
Authors DA and RD-H contributed equally to this work.
Identification
Copyright
© 2010 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
