Ancestral Stress Alters Lifetime Mental Health Trajectories and Cortical Neuromorphology via Epigenetic Regulation

Experiences during early development are powerful determinants of lifetime mental health. Here we investigated if ancestral stress regulates the brain’s epigenetic memory to alter neuromorphology and emotionality in the remote F4 progeny. Pregnant female rat dams of the parental F0 generation were exposed to stress on gestational days 12–18. To generate a transgenerational stress lineage, their pregnant daughters (F1), grand-daughters (F2) and great-grand-daughters (F3) remained undisturbed. To generate a multigenerational stress lineage, pregnant dams of each generation (F1–F3) were stressed. A lineage of non-stress controls (F0–F3) was also produced. Multigenerational stress exceeded the impact of transgenerational stress by increasing anxiety-like behaviours and stress response in young and middle-aged F4 males but not females. Functional changes were accompanied by reduced spine density in the male medial prefrontal cortex with opposite effects in the orbital frontal cortex. Ancestral stress regulated cortical miR-221 and miR-26 expression and their target genes, thus downregulating ntrk2 and map1a genes in males while downregulating crh and upregulating map1a genes in females. These miRNA-dependent pathways are candidates for developmental programming of lifetime mental health. Thus, multigenerational stress in particular determines sexually dimorphic predisposition to stress vulnerability and generates a phenotype resembling symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.