Early Life Stressors Lead to Lifetime Increase in Inflammation in Mice
Stressors in early life can contribute to the risk of developing mood disorders. Given that many treatments for mood disorders work by blocking the serotonin 5-HT transporter, Nicole Baganz and colleagues designed a study to see whether an early life stressor, in this case maternal separation, would affect immune processes that in turn affect serotonin signaling.
In this study as in many before it, mice that were removed from their mothers exhibited behaviors that resembled human anxiety and depression. They were also found to have elevated messenger RNA for several inflammatory cytokines (including IL-1beta and IL-6) in their brain and blood. Mice that had a gene for the interleukin-1 receptor (IL-1R) removed exhibited neither the depressive behavioral effects nor the changes in cytokine levels following maternal separation, showing that the IL-1R gene plays a necessary role in the signaling process that leads to this type of depression. Levels of the stress hormone corticosterone in the blood did not differ in the mice with and without the IL-1R gene.
The researchers concluded that early life stressors can cause lifelong changes in inflammatory cytokine levels in mice.
