Maternal Care, Hippocampal Glucocorticoid Receptors, and Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Responses to Stress

作者：Dong Liu, Josie C. Diorio, Beth M. Tannenbaum, Christian Caldji, Darlene D Francis, Alison Freedman, Shakti Sharma, Deborah A. Pearson, Paul M. Plotsky, Michael Joseph Meaney · 发表于：Science · 年份：1997 · DOI：10.1126/science.277.5332.1659 · 被引用次数：3183 · 研究领域：Stress Responses and Cortisol、Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior、Tryptophan and brain disorders

Variations in maternal care affect the development of individual differences in neuroendocrine responses to stress in rats. As adults, the offspring of mothers that exhibited more licking and grooming of pups during the first 10 days of life showed reduced plasma adrenocorticotropic hormone and corticosterone responses to acute stress, increased hippocampal glucocorticoid receptor messenger RNA expression, enhanced glucocorticoid feedback sensitivity, and decreased levels of hypothalamic corticotropin-releasing hormone messenger RNA. Each measure was significantly correlated with the frequency of maternal licking and grooming (all r's > -0.6). These findings suggest that maternal behavior serves to "program" hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal responses to stress in the offspring.