Stress, glucocorticoids and liquorice in human pregnancy: Programmers of the offspring brain

Abstract

A suboptimal prenatal environment may induce permanent changes in cells, organs and physiology that alter social, emotional and cognitive functioning, and increase the risk of cardiometabolic and mental disorders in subsequent life (“developmental programming”). Although animal studies have provided a wealth of data on programming and its mechanisms, including on the role of stress and its glucocorticoid mediators, empirical evidence of these mechanisms in humans is still scanty. We review the existing human evidence on the effects of prenatal maternal stress, anxiety and depression, glucocorticoids and intake of liquorice (which inhibits the placental barrier to maternal glucocorticoids) on offspring developmental outcomes including, for instance, alterations in psychophysiological and neurocognitive functioning and mental health. This work lays the foundations for biomarker discovery and affords opportunities for prevention and interventions to ameliorate adverse outcomes in humans.

Keywords::

• Child
• glucocorticoids
• human
• liquorice
• mood
• offspring

Declaration of interest: This work was sponsored by the grants from the European Science Foundation, Stress and Mental Health programme (EuroSTRESS), the Finnish Academy, the Medical Research Council (UK), The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.