Prenatal Influences
Long-term effects of prenatal synthetic glucocorticoid exposure on psychosocial stress reactivity and volitional control in children and adolescents (DFG LI 879/15-1, AL 1484/5-1, KI 537/36-1)
Theoretical background
Prenatal overexposure to stress hormones (e.g. glucocorticoids) is one of the earliest adverse influences on the developing brain and a potent programming factor of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal-axis (HPA-axis) functioning. Of particular relevance to the current project are long-term effects of prenatal synthetic glucocorticoid (sGC) exposure on the development of affective and cognitive regulations. In antenatal medicine sGCs are routinely used to treat pregnant women at risk of preterm delivery to speed up fetal lung maturation in order to improve the child's chances of survival.
In a previous study, implemented by the Chair of Biopsychology, increased cortisol reactivity to acute psychosocial stress was observed in children (aged 6 to 11 years) exposed to prenatal sGC treatment compared to controls (Alexander et al., 2012). The study provided thereby the first evidence for long-lasting effects of sGC exposure on HPA-axis reactivity.
Project aims
In the present study we plan to extend this prior research of endocrine stress reactivity.
- First we aim to investigate impacts of prenatal sGC exposure on cortisol secretion (as a marker for acute stress) as well as on haircortisol (as a marker for long-term stress).
- Second, by measuring electroencephalography (EEG) we aim to investigate effects of antenatal sGC exposure on electrical brain potentials (Hämmerer et al., 2010) as well as temporal brain dynamics (Papenberg et al., 2013) associated with key aspects of cognitive control processes (e.g. conflict and novelty monitoring), which are tightly linked to HPA-axis functions.
- Third, we will analyze epigenetic modifications as a potential mechanism mediating sustained effects of antenatal sGC on stress-related and cognitive measures.
Principal investigator and Team
Prof. Shu-Chen Li, Ph.D
Dr. Franka Thurm
M.Sc. Liesa Ilg
Collaborators
- Prof. Dr. Clemens Kirschbaum, Chair of Biopsychology, TU Dresden
- Dr. Nina Alexander - Chair of Differential and Personality Psychology, MSH Medical School Hamburg
Selected Project-relevant Publications
- Alexander, N., Rosenlöcher, F., Stalder, T., et al. (2012). Impact of antenatal synthetic glucocorticoid exposure on endocrine stress reactivity in term-born children. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 97(10), 3538–3544. doi: 10.1210/jc.2012-1970
- Hämmerer, D., Li, S.-C., Müller, V. & Lindenberger, U. (2010). An electrophysiological study of response conflict processing across the lifespan: Assessing the role of conflict monitoring, cue utilization, response anticipation, and response suppression. Neuropsychologia, 48(11), 3305-3316. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.07.014
- Papenberg, G., Hämmerer, D., Müller, V., Lindenberger, U. & Li, S.-C. (2013). Lower-theta inter-trial phase coherence during performance monitoring is related to reaction time variability: A lifespan study. NeuroImage, 83, 912-920. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.07.032
Förderkennzeichen: LI 879/15-1