Newborns whose mothers were exposed during pregnancy to any one of a variety of environmental stressors – trauma, illness, and alcohol or drug abuse – become susceptible to various psychiatric disorders that frequently arise later in life. However, it has been unclear how these stressors affect the cells of the developing brain prenatally and give rise to conditions such as schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and some forms of autism and bipolar disorders. [s]Medical Xpress[/s] reports that [b]Yale University[/b] researchers, published in [s]Neuron[/s], have now identified a single molecular mechanism in the developing brain that sheds light on how cells may go awry when exposed to a variety of different environmental insults.
[link url=http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-04-earliest-roots-psychiatric-disorders.html]Full Medical Xpress report[/link]
[link url=http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(14)00196-2]Neuron abstract[/link]