Stressed Pregnancy Might Hinder Infants’ Brain Development

While stress is at no time considered healthy, maternal stress during or even before pregnancy can affect the infant’s brain development, found a new study. The study looked at the relationship between maternal stress and brain development in 251 premature kids. Researchers found evidence for the impaired development of a white matter tract, the uncinate fasciculus, in babies whose mothers experience more stress in the prenatal period. These findings were published in the Journal Biological Psychiatry.

The mothers completed a questionnaire that asked them about their experiences of stressful events, ranging from everyday stress such as moving house or taking an exam to more severe stressors like experiencing bereavement, separation or divorce.

A score of severity of stress was calculated based on how many stressors they experienced as well as how severe those stressors were. This is what was related to the baby’s brain.
Researchers used a medical imaging technique called diffusion tensor imaging that was specifically developed to look at the structure of the white matter, which has previously been implicated in anxiety disorders – adults that have an anxiety disorder may show changes in the tract.

We found that in the mums that were more stressed during pregnancy and the period before birth, white matter was altered in the babies, said lead researcher.

Clinicians have an important role to play when speaking with expectant mothers. While questions are asked about depressive symptoms, few questions are asked about general stress and anxiety. Women who deal with stressful life events during pregnancy are not picked up by their GPs or by their health care providers very often.

It is not diagnosed as often as it should be during pregnancy and we are trying to emphasise that maternal mental health during pregnancy can impact the baby’s brain development which may impact on their outcomes later in life, researcher added.
Antenatal services need to be aware that it is important to think about stress of the mums and we need to have some kind of support there for the mums who identify that they are stressed, the researcher opined.

There is some evidence to suggest that if mothers experience poor mental health during pregnancy that leads to adverse outcomes in the baby – obstetric outcomes, lower birth weight or premature birth.
A mother’s poor mental health may also lead to altered early behavior such as more frequent crying.

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Smell may shape human memories

Scents and smells can form the basis of some of the most significant memories humans form in their lives, a new study suggests.

The discovery may provide a means to detect early problems with memory formation and memory retrieval in the brain, researchers said.

An international team led by University of Queensland has boosted understanding of the smell-memory connection, showing that olfactory memory in honeybees regulates receptors in their antennae.

Bees' antennae function like a human nose, said Queensland Brain Institute scientists Dr Judith Reinhard and Associate Professor Charles Claudianos.

"French novelist Marcel Proust in his novel Remembrance of Things Past (also known as In Search of Lost Time) described how his childhood memories started to flow when he tasted a madeleine cake dipped in linden tea, as he had been given as a child," Reinhard said.

"Our team found that odour memories trigger recall of associated events, and that long-term odour memory formation in the brain regulates the sense of smell in the 'nose' via regulating the receptor molecules," Reinhard said.

"Preferences for different foods and beverages are linked to our sense of smell, and our research shows that long-term scent memories modify how odours are perceived," said Reinhard.

"In a nutshell: our smell experiences shape our preferences," she added.

"The study demonstrates for the first time that the ability to smell different things is experience-dependent and modulated by scent conditioning," said Reinhard.

Claudianos said the findings could help explain the wide variability of smell perception in humans and the neurological mechanism underlying the common phenomenon of "acquired taste", where repeated sensory experience with a flavour or aroma leads to perceptual changes.

"This knowledge will provide an enormous insight for understanding food and aroma perception," he said.

"The discovery may also provide a means to detect early problems with memory formation and memory retrieval in the brain," said Claudianos.

Individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia or neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease often have an altered sense of smell perception, researchers said.

The study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

SUMMARYDiscovery may provide a means to detect early problems with memory formation, memory retrieval in brain.

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