Science Shorts
Stress in pregnancy hits offspring's emotional brain
Research carried out by Katharina Braun, from the University of Magdeburg, Germany, opens the importance of care of pregnant mares up for further thought.
The results of the work, presented recently at the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies' annual meeting in Vienna, Austria, show that stress experienced by a pregnant female can alter the structure of her offspring's brain, particularly regions vital for emotional development.
And in rodents, the subjects of this research, the impact varies according to gender. Ms Braun suggests that this may help explain differences between men and women with regard to emotional and psychiatric disorders.
Maltreatment and Health
In a another piece of research, also dealing with the impact of environment on the young, this time at the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit, it has been discovered that maltreatment in childhood is linked to health problems in later life.
In this ground breaking New Zealand study, the first of its kind in the world, the study's author, Associate Professor Richie Poulton, has shown that such children are more than twice as likely to develop heart problems in later life.
