Influence of prenatal psychosocial stress on cytokine production in adult women
- 5 August 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Developmental Psychobiology
- Vol. 50 (6), 579-587
- https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.20316
Abstract
The aim of the present study was to determine the association between prenatal stress and immune function in human adults. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 34 healthy young women whose mothers experienced major negative life events during their pregnancy (Prenatal Stress, PS group, mean age 25, SD ± 4.34 years), and from a female comparison group (n = 28, CG, mean age 24 ± 3.40 years), were stimulated with phytohemagglutinin (PHA), and subsequent cytokine production was measured. A bias for T‐helper 2 (Th2) cytokine production due to an overproduction of IL‐4 relative to IFN‐γ after PHA stimulation was observed in PS subjects. In addition, IL‐6 and IL‐10 were also significantly elevated. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to suggest a direct association between prenatal stress exposure and alterations in immune parameters in adult women. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 50: 579–587, 2008.Keywords
This publication has 51 references indexed in Scilit:
- Psychoneuroendocrine processes in human pregnancy influence fetal development and healthPsychoneuroendocrinology, 2005
- Mothers in Stress: Consequences for the OffspringAmerican Journal of Reproductive Immunology, 2005
- Psychological Stress and the Human Immune System: A Meta-Analytic Study of 30 Years of Inquiry.Psychological Bulletin, 2004
- Is Birthweight Associated with Thyroid Autoimmunity? A Study in TwinsThyroid®, 2002
- Social stress in pregnant squirrel monkeys (Saimiri boliviensis peruviensis) differentially affects placental transfer of maternal antibody to male and female infants.Health Psychology, 2000
- Psychosocial predictors of low birthweight: a prospective studyBJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 1999
- Perinatal factors and atopic disease in childhoodClinical & Experimental Allergy, 1997
- The expanding universe of T-cell subsets: Th1, Th2 and moreImmunology Today, 1996
- Sex-specific effects of prenatal stress on hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal responses to stress and brain glucocorticoid receptor density in adult ratsDevelopmental Brain Research, 1995
- Prenatal stress selectively alters the reactivity of the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal system in the female ratBrain Research, 1992