Doctoral Dissertation Research: Intergenerational Effects of Maternal Stress

关于健康和疾病的发育起源的研究表明，产前环境可能与慢性和代谢紊乱的长期风险有关，包括肥胖、心血管疾病、高血压和糖尿病。这一生物文化博士论文项目调查了围产期母体应激如何在经历快速社会和经济变化的人口中塑造婴儿中枢应激反应系统的发展。这项工作将有助于我们从进化生活史的角度理解影响胎儿发育的因素，并为世界各地代谢性疾病发病率上升的社会和生物学基础提供见解。这一研究结果可能会为孕期产妇护理政策提供参考。该项目还将支持研究生培训以及国际合作和研究能力。胎儿起源框架表明，母亲的心理社会压力可以改变胎儿的发育，对胎儿的HPA轴进行编程，对各种系统产生永久性影响，从而增加代谢性疾病的风险。虽然之前的研究主要是在富裕的生物医学环境中研究了母亲应激与婴儿HPA轴失调之间的孤立机制，但拟议的研究调查了从怀孕中期到婴儿早期，多种途径如何协同作用，在中等收入的生态环境中塑造HPA轴的发育。通过为期12个月的混合方法数据收集，包括半结构化访谈、压力量表和生物标记物测试，该项目寻求为人类学做出贡献，不仅作为一个正在经历戏剧性变化的国家中母亲压力的重要案例研究，而且作为一项调查，将添加一个关键组成部分，以理解DOHaD作为一个更大的现象塑造健康。具体地说，研究人员将调查：产前母体应激的作用，胎盘11？HSD2表达的作用，以及产后母体应激在婴儿HPA轴发育中的作用。拟议的工作强调从产前到出生后的早期发育的连续体。除了调查怀孕期间多个时间点的母体应激，这项工作还增加了胎盘11？-HSD2表达的检查和出生后应激的检查，作为在后代中修改HPA轴的综合途径。

Research on the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) has shown that the prenatal environment can be associated with long-term risks for chronic and metabolic disorders, including obesity, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and diabetes. This biocultural doctoral dissertation project investigates how maternal stress during the perinatal period shapes the development of the central stress response system in infants, in a population undergoing rapid social and economic change. This work will contribute to our understanding of the factors shaping fetal development from an evolutionary life history perspective, and offer insights into the social and biological underpinnings of the rising rates of metabolic diseases around the world. The research findings may inform policy on maternal care during pregnancy. The project will also support graduate student training and international collaborations and research capacity. The fetal origins framework has shown that maternal psychosocial stress can modify fetal development, programming a fetus's HPA axis with permanent consequences on a variety of systems, leading to increased risk of metabolic disease. While previous research has examined isolated mechanisms linking maternal stress to infant HPA axis dysregulation, largely in wealthy, biomedical settings, the proposed research investigates how multiple pathways work in tandem from the second trimester through early infancy to shape HPA axis development in a middle-income, ecological setting. Through twelve months of mixed methods data collection, including semi-structured interviews, stress scales, and biomarker testing, this project seeks to contribute to anthropology not only as an important case study on maternal stress in a nation undergoing dramatic change, but also as an investigation that will add a critical component to the understanding of DOHaD as a larger phenomenon shaping health. Specifically, the researchers will investigate: the role of prenatal maternal stress, the role of placental 11ß-HSD2 expression, and the role of postnatal maternal stress in the development of the infant HPA axis. The proposed work emphasizes the continuum of early development from the prenatal into the postnatal period. In addition to investigating maternal stress at multiple time points during pregnancy, the work adds the examination of placental 11ß-HSD2 expression and of stress in the postnatal period as integrated pathways through which the HPA axis can be modified in offspring.