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Predictions of children’s emotionality from evolutionary and epigenetic hypotheses

Sex-dependent effects of mismatched prenatal-postnatal maternal conditions are predicted by combining two evolutionary hypotheses: that foetal conditions provide a forecast of likely postnatal environments (Predictive Adaptive Response), and that the female foetus is better adapted than the male to...

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Autores principales: Hill, Jonathan, Pickles, Andrew, Wright, Nicola, Braithwaite, Elizabeth, Sharp, Helen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6384926/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30792470
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39513-7
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author Hill, Jonathan
Pickles, Andrew
Wright, Nicola
Braithwaite, Elizabeth
Sharp, Helen
author_facet Hill, Jonathan
Pickles, Andrew
Wright, Nicola
Braithwaite, Elizabeth
Sharp, Helen
author_sort Hill, Jonathan
collection PubMed
description Sex-dependent effects of mismatched prenatal-postnatal maternal conditions are predicted by combining two evolutionary hypotheses: that foetal conditions provide a forecast of likely postnatal environments (Predictive Adaptive Response), and that the female foetus is better adapted than the male to maternal adversity (Trivers-Willard hypothesis). Animal studies have implicated glucocorticoid mechanisms modifiable by effects of postnatal tactile stimulation on glucocorticoid receptor gene expression. In this study we examined behavioural predictions in humans based on these evolutionary and epigenetic models. Mothers in a general population cohort provided self-reported anxiety scores at 20 weeks pregnancy, and at 9 weeks, 14 months and 3.5 years postpartum, and frequency of infant stroking at 9 weeks. Mothers and teachers reported child symptoms at 7 years. SEM models with maximum-likelihood estimates made use of data from 887 participants. There was a three-way interaction between prenatal and postnatal anxiety and maternal stroking in the prediction of irritability, seen only in girls. This arose because lower maternal stroking was associated with higher irritability, only in the mismatched, low-high and high-low maternal anxiety groups. We provide evidence that mechanisms likely to have evolved well before the emergence of humans, contribute to the development of children’s emotionality and risk for depression.
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spelling pubmed-63849262019-02-26 Predictions of children’s emotionality from evolutionary and epigenetic hypotheses Hill, Jonathan Pickles, Andrew Wright, Nicola Braithwaite, Elizabeth Sharp, Helen Sci Rep Article Sex-dependent effects of mismatched prenatal-postnatal maternal conditions are predicted by combining two evolutionary hypotheses: that foetal conditions provide a forecast of likely postnatal environments (Predictive Adaptive Response), and that the female foetus is better adapted than the male to maternal adversity (Trivers-Willard hypothesis). Animal studies have implicated glucocorticoid mechanisms modifiable by effects of postnatal tactile stimulation on glucocorticoid receptor gene expression. In this study we examined behavioural predictions in humans based on these evolutionary and epigenetic models. Mothers in a general population cohort provided self-reported anxiety scores at 20 weeks pregnancy, and at 9 weeks, 14 months and 3.5 years postpartum, and frequency of infant stroking at 9 weeks. Mothers and teachers reported child symptoms at 7 years. SEM models with maximum-likelihood estimates made use of data from 887 participants. There was a three-way interaction between prenatal and postnatal anxiety and maternal stroking in the prediction of irritability, seen only in girls. This arose because lower maternal stroking was associated with higher irritability, only in the mismatched, low-high and high-low maternal anxiety groups. We provide evidence that mechanisms likely to have evolved well before the emergence of humans, contribute to the development of children’s emotionality and risk for depression. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-02-21 /pmc/articles/PMC6384926/ /pubmed/30792470 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39513-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Hill, Jonathan
Pickles, Andrew
Wright, Nicola
Braithwaite, Elizabeth
Sharp, Helen
Predictions of children’s emotionality from evolutionary and epigenetic hypotheses
title Predictions of children’s emotionality from evolutionary and epigenetic hypotheses
title_full Predictions of children’s emotionality from evolutionary and epigenetic hypotheses
title_fullStr Predictions of children’s emotionality from evolutionary and epigenetic hypotheses
title_full_unstemmed Predictions of children’s emotionality from evolutionary and epigenetic hypotheses
title_short Predictions of children’s emotionality from evolutionary and epigenetic hypotheses
title_sort predictions of children’s emotionality from evolutionary and epigenetic hypotheses
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6384926/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30792470
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39513-7
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