Acute maternal stress in pregnancy and schizophrenia in offspring: A cohort prospective study

Malaspina, Dolores; Corcoran, Cheryl; Kleinhaus, Karine; Perrin, Mary; Fennig, Shmuel; Nahon, Daniella; Friedlander, Yechiel; Harlap, Susan

doi:10.1186/1471-244x-8-71

Cited by 191 publications

(118 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(59 reference statements)

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“…Recent studies also indicate a higher prevalence of posttraumatic stress, anxiety and depression, and affective disorders in adults who were born in Jerusalem between 1964 and 1976, whose mothers were subject to war stress in the first quarter, especially in the third month of pregnancy 14 . The work of Malaspina et al 15 also shows that the mother's gestational stress caused by the Arab-Israeli war in 1967 in the first quarter turned out to represent a significant risk factor for schizophrenia, more often in females. Feldman and Vengrober 10 established the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder in 37.8% of children aged 1.5 to 5 subject to the war in the Gaza Strip, while Meijer 16 proved the connection between the wartime stress and psychiatric disorders, including children's regressive, non-affiliative and dissocial behavior.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Twenty-Three-Year Long-Term Health Outcome After the War in Vukovar

Habek

Dujaković

Habek

et al. 2016

ACC

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SUMMARY -Results of the first research of this kind on the 23-year long-term outcome in children born during the war in Vukovar are presented. This retrospective clinical study surveyed the potential 23-year long-term consequences and morbidity of children born between May 1, 1991 and November 19, 1991, during the siege and occupation of Vukovar. Data were obtained from women having delivered their babies in that period and from delivery protocols of the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Vukovar County Hospital. According to the survey and the data collected, there were 9 (3.98%) preterm deliveries, 60 (81%) of the total of 77 subjects were breastfed, 14 (19%) were not breastfed, while three babies died in the postpartum period. However, the breastfeeding period was evidently shorter, as only 10 women breastfed for a period longer than 6 months, while the mean length of the breastfeeding period was 9.9 weeks, i.e. 2.5 months. Allergyrelated illnesses and proneness to infections in childhood and preschool age were found in 27.3% and 16.9% of children, respectively, while two children developed diabetes type 1. One child had atopic diathesis, two started speaking after the age of two, one child started walking late (after 20 months) and started speaking after the age of two, one child had loud sound phobia, and one used to overreact and express anger in inconvenient situations, all of them being of female gender and born prematurely. Cognitive and attention disorders and stress reactions were found in 6.5% of the children. Regular elementary school education was completed by 74 (96%) children, while three (3.8%) children experienced failure at school due bad behavior, i.e. delinquency. At the age of 23, 34 (46%) children had developed bad habits, i.e. 33 of them smoked, 2 were addicted to alcohol, whereas one was addicted to both smoking and alcohol. Forty (54%) subjects did not use any harmful substances. Psychiatric disorders related to anxiety, depression or other illnesses were not found in this research. In conclusion, it should be noted that pregnant women who gave birth during the study period spent the first trimester of their pregnancy in a relatively peaceful pre-war period without acute stressors, so the long-term results and morbidity actually did not differ from those in the general population. The most important isolated risk factor was premature delivery with the known short-term and long-term consequences typical for premature delivery (perinatal mortality, slow neuromotor and cognitive development).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Twenty-Three-Year Long-Term Health Outcome After the War in Vukovar

Habek

Dujaković

Habek

et al. 2016

ACC

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“…Indeed, environmental factors have been demonstrated to contribute to the disease in humans (Vereczkei and Mirnics, 2011). Specifically, fetal hypoxia (Mittal et al, 2008), maternal stress (Malaspina et al, 2008;Van Os and Selten, 1998), and adolescent cannabis exposure (Caspi et al, 2005), to name a few, are risk factors for schizophrenia. It should be noted that rearing conditions of the F2 offspring may contribute to their schizophrenia-like phenotype.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Schizophrenia-Like Phenotype Inherited by the F2 Generation of a Gestational Disruption Model of Schizophrenia

Perez

Aguilar

Neary

et al. 2015

Neuropsychopharmacol

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Both environmental and genetic factors contribute to schizophrenia; however, the exact etiology of this disorder is not known. Animal models are utilized to better understand the mechanisms associated with neuropsychiatric diseases, including schizophrenia. One of these involves gestational administration of methylazoxymethanol acetate (MAM) to induce a developmental disruption, which in turn produces a schizophrenia-like phenotype in post-pubertal rats. The mechanisms by which MAM produces this phenotype are not clear; however, we now demonstrate that MAM induces differential DNA methylation, which may be heritable. Here we demonstrate that a subset of both second (F2) and third (F3) filial generations of MAM-treated rats displays a schizophrenia-like phenotype and hypermethylation of the transcription factor, Sp5. Specifically, ventral tegmental area of dopamine neuron activity was examined using electrophysiology as a correlate for the dopamine hyperfunction thought to underlie psychosis in patients. Interestingly, only a subset of F2 and F3 MAM rats exhibited increases in dopamine neuron population activity, indicating that this may be a unique model with a susceptibility to develop a schizophrenia-like phenotype. An increase in dopamine system function in rodent models has been previously associated with decreases in hippocampal GABAergic transmission. In line with these observations, we found a significant correlation between hippocampal parvalbumin expression and dopamine neuron activity in F2 rats. These data therefore provide evidence that offspring born from MAMtreated rats possess a susceptibility to develop aspects of a schizophrenia-like phenotype and may provide a useful tool to investigate geneenvironment interactions.

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“…Death of spouse 31,32 and experience of catastrophic events, such as war 33 and nuclear explosion, 34 have been found to increase the risk of schizophrenia among those exposed. van Os and Selten 33 found an increased relative risk (RR) of schizophrenia (RR 1.28) among those in the Netherlands who were in their first or second trimester during the Nazi invasion in May 1940, and Malaspina and colleagues 35 found that those in their second month of gestation during the 1967 Arab-Israel War (Six-Day War) also had an increased risk of schizophrenia. Imamura and colleagues 34 found that those exposed in their second or third trimester to the nuclear explosion in Nagasaki were at increased risk of schizophrenia.…”

Section: Prenatal Stressmentioning

confidence: 99%