ArticleMolecular psychiatry2020
Early-life stress impairs postnatal oligodendrogenesis and adult emotional behaviour through activity-dependent mechanisms.
Article in Molecular psychiatry, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 85 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
85 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 160 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Early Life Stress on the Prefrontal Cortex Transcriptome Reveals Long-Term Downregulation of Myelin-Related Gene Expression.Brain and behavior · 2025Pooled it
- Article
- Early life experiences, the neural epigenome and affective disorder risk.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Glucocorticoid receptors in oligodendrocyte precursor cells regulate hippocampal network plasticity and stress-induced behavior in mice.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Neurodevelopmental effects of early life stress: PFC and cognition.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- Myelin dysfunction in autism spectrum disorder: insights into core symptoms and mechanisms of brain development.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- TPH1-dependent maternal hyposerotonemia: long-term effects on adult wild-type mouse offspring.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Concurrent maternal stress and THC exposure alters maternal regulation and downstream adolescent corticolimbic programs.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Prenatal Adversity and Neonatal Brain Connectivity Relate to Emerging Executive Function at Age 2 Years.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2026Article
- Article
- The Microbiota Shapes Central Nervous System Myelination in Early Life.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Advances in chemogenetics: a review of DREADDs and its application in psychiatric disorders.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Review
- The role of sensory experience in the maturation of prefrontal cortical circuits.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Social Determinants of Health, the developing brain, and risk and resilience for psychopathology.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- From "Gig" to Genes: The enduring legacy of Seymour Levine in developmental stress neurobiology.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- Neurobiology of resilience to early life stress.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Prefrontal gamma oscillations and fear extinction learning require early postnatal interneuron-oligodendroglia communication.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Early life adversity and adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Pathways to persistence and adult susceptibility.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- Oligodendrocyte lineage cells dysfunction in depression: early life stress, adolescent vulnerability and the emerging role of lipid metabolism.Translational psychiatry · 2025Review
- Dysfunction of the paraventricular thalamus-prelimbic cortex circuit underlies maternal separation-induced deficits in contagious pain.Science advances · 2025Article
25 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Exposure to stress during early life (infancy/childhood) has long-term effects on the structure and function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and increases the risk for adult depression and anxiety disorders. However, little is known about the molecular and cellular mechanisms of these effects. Here, we focused on changes induced by chronic maternal separation during the first 2 weeks of postnatal life. Unbiased mRNA expression profiling in the medial PFC (mPFC) of maternally separated (MS) pups identified an increased expression of myelin-related genes and a decreased expression of immediate early genes. Oligodendrocyte lineage markers and birthdating experiments indicated a precocious oligodendrocyte differentiation in the mPFC at P15, leading to a depletion of the oligodendrocyte progenitor pool in MS adults. We tested the role of neuronal activity in oligodendrogenesis, using designed receptors exclusively activated by designed drugs (DREADDs) techniques. hM4Di or hM3Dq constructs were transfected into mPFC neurons using fast-acting AAV8 viruses. Reduction of mPFC neuron excitability during the first 2 postnatal weeks caused a premature differentiation of oligodendrocytes similar to the MS pups, while chemogenetic activation normalised it in the MS animals. Bidirectional manipulation of neuron excitability in the mPFC during the P2-P14 period had long lasting effects on adult emotional behaviours and on temporal object recognition: hM4Di mimicked MS effects, while hM3Dq prevented the pro-depressive effects and short-term memory impairment of MS. Thus, our results identify neuronal activity as a critical target of early-life stress and demonstrate its function in controlling both postnatal oligodendrogenesis and adult mPFC-related behaviours.
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