Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, CT, USA.
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA, USA.
Neurotoxicol Teratol. 2023 Nov-Dec;100:107308. doi: 10.1016/j.ntt.2023.107308. Epub 2023 Oct 27.
Prenatal stress adversely affects offspring development, with fetal cortisol (CORT) exposure being a primary hypothesized mechanism for stress-induced developmental deficits. Fetal CORT exposure can be assessed via measurements in amniotic fluid. However, in humans, amniocentesis is typically only performed for clinical reasons such as karyotyping; thus, amniotic fluid CORT cannot be obtained from a random sample. To test the hypothesis that fetal CORT exposure predicts neonatal and infant development in healthy primates, we measured amniotic fluid CORT in N = 18 healthy rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta) dams (50:50 female:male infants) between 80 and 124 days gestation (mean ± SEM = 98.3 ± 2.9 days out of 165 days gestational length; i.e., second trimester). Maternal hair cortisol concentrations (HCCs) were assessed throughout pregnancy and lactation. Offspring were assessed for physical growth, neurological development, cognitive development, and HCCs across postnatal days 30-180. Controlling for gestational age at amniocentesis, higher amniotic fluid CORT significantly predicted slower infant growth rate (g/day) in the first 30 days (β = -0.19; R = 0.71, p = .008), poorer sensorimotor scores on the day 30 neonatal assessment (β = -0.28; R = 0.76, p = .015), and longer time to complete training (β = 0.48; R = 0.54, p = .026), but better performance (β = 0.91; R = 0.60, p = .011) on a discrimination cognitive task at 120-180 days. Amniotic fluid CORT was not associated with maternal or infant HCCs. Although these results are correlative, they raise the intriguing possibility that fetal CORT exposure in non-stress-exposed primates, as measured by amniotic fluid CORT, programs multiple aspects of neonatal and infant development. On the other hand, amniotic fluid CORT may not relate to chronic CORT levels in either mothers or infants when assessed by hair sampling.
产前应激会对后代的发育产生不利影响，胎儿皮质醇（CORT）暴露是应激引起发育缺陷的主要假设机制。可以通过测量羊水来评估胎儿 CORT 暴露情况。然而，在人类中，羊膜穿刺术通常仅出于临床原因（如染色体核型分析）进行；因此，无法从随机样本中获得羊水 CORT。为了检验胎儿 CORT 暴露是否可以预测健康灵长类动物的新生儿和婴儿发育这一假设，我们测量了 18 名健康恒河猴（Macaca mulatta）母猴（50:50 雌性：雄性婴儿）在妊娠 80 至 124 天（妊娠 165 天的平均妊娠时间为 98.3±2.9 天，即妊娠中期）之间的羊水 CORT。整个孕期和哺乳期都评估了母体毛发皮质醇浓度（HCCs）。在产后 30-180 天期间，对后代的身体生长、神经发育、认知发育和 HCCs 进行了评估。在控制羊膜穿刺术时的胎龄后，较高的羊水 CORT 显著预测了前 30 天内婴儿生长速度（g/天）更慢（β=-0.19；R=0.71，p=0.008），新生儿评估日第 30 天的感觉运动评分更差（β=-0.28；R=0.76，p=0.015），完成训练的时间更长（β=0.48；R=0.54，p=0.026），但在 120-180 天的辨别认知任务中的表现更好（β=0.91；R=0.60，p=0.011）。羊水 CORT 与母婴 HCCs 无关。尽管这些结果是相关的，但它们提出了一个有趣的可能性，即在非应激暴露的灵长类动物中，通过羊水 CORT 测量的胎儿 CORT 暴露会编程新生儿和婴儿发育的多个方面。另一方面，当通过毛发取样评估时，羊水 CORT 可能与母亲或婴儿的慢性 CORT 水平无关。
