From Monday, June 16, to Thursday, June 19, 40 of the most eminent researchers in the world, in the field of perinatality and its consequences, will meet at the Delta Hotel in downtown Montreal as part of the symposium "Mother and Infant: Perinatal Influences on Health" and will discuss the most recent
research results on the subject.
Three of numerous subjects of interest (This symposium is opened to all media, by reservation, for its duration.)

1. Biological and physiological programming of the child influenced by events before conception
It is now possible to establish a link between malnutrition in the mother, before and during the period of conception, and increased risk of premature birth. Indeed, new results from research carried out by Dr. Peter Gluckman and others, show that not only factors of stress or environment, which occur during the pregnancy, affect the development of the fetus. Nutritional factors before conception can also play a significant role.
Research carried out on sheep by Dr. Gluckman shows that malnutrition before conception acts on the fetus’s production of cortisol, a hormone responsible for initiating the birth process in sheep. This hormone, which is secreted by the suprarenal gland, along with adrenaline, coordinates the response to stress. Thus, because of the mother’s malnutrition before conception, the fetuses at risk would have higher chances of undergoing a cortisol increase in the last trimester. This increase in cortisol, and in the stress it causes, can cause contractions that lead to a premature birth. If this study is applied to humans, particular attention paid to the events before conception could prevent one of the major causes of premature birth.
A distinguished guest, Dr. Gluckman, from the Liggins Institute, University of Auckland in New Zealand, will present his lecture, entitled "The Early Origins of Health and Disease: A Biomedical and Clinical Perspective to an Epidemiological Hypothesis”, on Tuesday, June 17, at 8:30 a.m. at the Delta Hotel (Downtown), located at 777 University St. in Montreal.

2. Maternal instinct stronger than drugs
Mothers and future mothers are more likely to not consume dangerous drugs like cocaine, due to biological factors that render the maternal instinct stronger than all of the pleasures received through drugs. This is what the research carried out by Dr. Joan Morrell, professor of neurosciences at the University of Rutgers at Newark (USA), seems to indicate. "The results of our research on animals strongly suggest that there are biological factors that allow rat mothers, and by correlation, human mothers, to choose to protect their new-born baby rather than pleasure themselves with an illegal drug " explains Joan Morell. Studies showed that the mothers who consume illegal drugs more frequently choose to subject themselves to treatments of detoxication when they are pregnant, or when they have just given birth. This maternal behavior, choosing the child’s welfare rather than drugs, would be due not only to the social pressures, but would also be the result of biological changes in the brain.

These new discoveries could identify the hormone that causes preference for the child’s welfare rather than for drugs. The identification of this hormone could provide an alternative option to prevent and treat drug abuse.The next stages of this research are intended to define which areas of the brain are activated by the preference for cocaine, and which are activated by the preference for the new-born’s welfare. The study of the chemical change in these specific regions, linked to the consumption of drugs and maternal instinct, will make it possible to identify the chemical substances, representing a possible alternative for drug abuse treatment.

The lecture by Dr. Morell is entitled “The Motivational State of the Maternal Female Rat: Characteristics and Neural Substrate” and will be presented Tuesday, June 17, at 2:15 p.m. as part of Symposium 2 at the Delta Hotel (Downtown), located at 777 University St. in Montreal.

3. A healthy parent-child relationship during the first month of the child’s life could prevent psychoses and high blood pressure in adulthood
A troubled relationship between parents and children; for example: emotive and physical negligence and/or physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse of babies and/or children, causes physiological changes in them. The clinical evidence shows long-term major impacts on their mental health. The susceptibility to develop certain psychoses can be caused by post-traumatic childhood stress, which continues into adult life. These young adults who were neglected or abused at an early age, or who have experiences of post-traumatic stress have a higher risk of suffering from depression or an anxiety disorder. The hormonal and neuronal changes associated with depression involve, in their turn, an increase in blood pressure and heart rate.

It is these deep associations, between stress at an early age and the future development of disorders due to stress, which guided Dr. Christopher R. Pryce, of the Behavioral Neurobiology Laboratory of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Zürich in Switzerland, to carry out experimental research on primates, with the aim of developing new pharmaceutical and behavioral therapies to possibly treat these disorders. Results show that monkeys neglected at a young age, (during the first month of life), are less interested in social interactions, which, for humans and primates, are typically the most significant aspects of their life. When these monkeys had the opportunity to carry out a very simple learned behavior in order to obtain a very prized reward, (a banana milkshake), they were much less motivated than monkeys who are not neglected in this way. This phenomenon is called “anhedonia” (the inability to obtain pleasure from normally pleasant experiences), which is very frequently observed in depressed people, and in others who are mentally disturbed. These results strongly suggest that a person’s life path, and susceptibility to depression, can be largely influenced by the experiences of early childhood. It is thus crucial to regard this period of life as vulnerable, and disease prevention policies must be directed towards this age group.

The lecture by Dr. Pryce is entitled “Postnatal Intermittent Social Deprivation in Rats and Monkeys: Acute Effects, Chronic Effects and Mediating Mechanisms” and will be presented Thursday, June 19, at 9:45 a.m. as part of Symposium 5, at the Delta Hotel (Downtown), located at 777 University St. in Montreal.

 

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