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Evidence for Developmental Programming of Cerebral Laterality in Humans

Adverse fetal environments are associated with depression, reduced cognitive ability and increased stress responsiveness in later life, but underlying mechanisms are unknown. Environmental pressures on the fetus, resulting from variations in placental function and maternal nutrition, health and stre...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Jones, Alexander, Osmond, Clive, Godfrey, Keith M., Phillips, David I. W.
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3040213/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21359174
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0017071
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author Jones, Alexander
Osmond, Clive
Godfrey, Keith M.
Phillips, David I. W.
author_facet Jones, Alexander
Osmond, Clive
Godfrey, Keith M.
Phillips, David I. W.
author_sort Jones, Alexander
collection PubMed
description Adverse fetal environments are associated with depression, reduced cognitive ability and increased stress responsiveness in later life, but underlying mechanisms are unknown. Environmental pressures on the fetus, resulting from variations in placental function and maternal nutrition, health and stress might alter neurodevelopment, promoting the development of some brain regions over others. As asymmetry of cerebral activity, with greater right hemisphere activity, has been associated with psychopathology, we hypothesized that regional specialization during fetal life might be reflected persistently in the relative activity of the cerebral hemispheres. We tested this hypothesis in 140 healthy 8–9 year-old children, using tympanic membrane temperature to assess relative blood flow to the cerebral hemispheres at rest and following psychosocial stress (Trier Social Stress Test for Children). Their birth weight and placental weight had already been measured when their mothers took part in a previous study of pregnancy outcomes. We found that children who had a smaller weight at birth had evidence of greater blood flow to the right hemisphere than to the left hemisphere (r = −.09, P = .29 at rest; r = −.18, P = .04 following stress). This finding was strengthened if the children had a relatively low birth weight for their placental weight (r = −.17, P = .05 at rest; r = −.31, P = .0005 following stress). Our findings suggest that lateralization of cerebral activity is influenced persistently by early developmental experiences, with possible consequences for long-term neurocognitive function.
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spelling pubmed-30402132011-02-25 Evidence for Developmental Programming of Cerebral Laterality in Humans Jones, Alexander Osmond, Clive Godfrey, Keith M. Phillips, David I. W. PLoS One Research Article Adverse fetal environments are associated with depression, reduced cognitive ability and increased stress responsiveness in later life, but underlying mechanisms are unknown. Environmental pressures on the fetus, resulting from variations in placental function and maternal nutrition, health and stress might alter neurodevelopment, promoting the development of some brain regions over others. As asymmetry of cerebral activity, with greater right hemisphere activity, has been associated with psychopathology, we hypothesized that regional specialization during fetal life might be reflected persistently in the relative activity of the cerebral hemispheres. We tested this hypothesis in 140 healthy 8–9 year-old children, using tympanic membrane temperature to assess relative blood flow to the cerebral hemispheres at rest and following psychosocial stress (Trier Social Stress Test for Children). Their birth weight and placental weight had already been measured when their mothers took part in a previous study of pregnancy outcomes. We found that children who had a smaller weight at birth had evidence of greater blood flow to the right hemisphere than to the left hemisphere (r = −.09, P = .29 at rest; r = −.18, P = .04 following stress). This finding was strengthened if the children had a relatively low birth weight for their placental weight (r = −.17, P = .05 at rest; r = −.31, P = .0005 following stress). Our findings suggest that lateralization of cerebral activity is influenced persistently by early developmental experiences, with possible consequences for long-term neurocognitive function. Public Library of Science 2011-02-16 /pmc/articles/PMC3040213/ /pubmed/21359174 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0017071 Text en Jones et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Jones, Alexander
Osmond, Clive
Godfrey, Keith M.
Phillips, David I. W.
Evidence for Developmental Programming of Cerebral Laterality in Humans
title Evidence for Developmental Programming of Cerebral Laterality in Humans
title_full Evidence for Developmental Programming of Cerebral Laterality in Humans
title_fullStr Evidence for Developmental Programming of Cerebral Laterality in Humans
title_full_unstemmed Evidence for Developmental Programming of Cerebral Laterality in Humans
title_short Evidence for Developmental Programming of Cerebral Laterality in Humans
title_sort evidence for developmental programming of cerebral laterality in humans
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3040213/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21359174
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0017071
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