Early life events are potent determinants of vulnerability and resistance to stressors. In many species, including rodents, the mother is the primary mediator of behavioral and physiological responses to stress in offspring during development. Emerging evidence indicates that epigenetic modifications in the brain of developing offspring are associated with the effects of maternal stress as well as individual neural, physiological, and behavioral responses to adversity. I will discuss research in my lab focused on identifying the relevant genomic targets (in the brain and periphery) of maternal stressors that exert long-term ‘programming’ effects on stress responses. We have approached this question in several ways. First, we have studied ecologically important stressors applied during gestation. Second, we have investigated factors that co-occur or interact with maternal care, including variations in ambient temperature and offspring genotype, that influence neurodevelopment and later-life behavior. Third, we have explored direct exposure to maternal dietary stressors across the developmental period on offspring phenotype and genome-wide epigenetic modifications in offspring brain. Through these investigations we will explore the significance of the maternal environment in neurodevelopment and the role of epigenetic mechanisms in important signaling pathways involved in susceptibility to stress-related illness.
Research in the McGowan lab is supported by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
