Effects of short environmental enrichment in adulthood on neuronal changes in defensive pathway following early-life stress

Early-life stress (ELS) have been attributed to psychological issues in the long-term. Maternal separation (MS) is a type of ELS where the offspring is separated from the mother, dysregulating the hypothalamic-pituitary (HPA) axis, a stress regulatory circuit. Behavioral studies suggested that chron...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Ho, Bernice Huiying
Other Authors: Rupshi Mitra
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/69177
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
id sg-ntu-dr.10356-69177
record_format dspace
spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-691772023-02-28T18:01:56Z Effects of short environmental enrichment in adulthood on neuronal changes in defensive pathway following early-life stress Ho, Bernice Huiying Rupshi Mitra School of Biological Sciences Archana Ashokan DRNTU::Science Early-life stress (ELS) have been attributed to psychological issues in the long-term. Maternal separation (MS) is a type of ELS where the offspring is separated from the mother, dysregulating the hypothalamic-pituitary (HPA) axis, a stress regulatory circuit. Behavioral studies suggested that chronic-stress compromises on the defensive pathway. Effects of ELS in the defensive pathway have yet to be clearly elucidated, and this study aims to bridge this gap in understanding. Additionally, this study will determine if short periods of environmental enrichment (EE) in adulthood can rescue the effects of ELS. Neuronal remodeling is affected by stress and stress related hormones, and would be indicative of effects that ELS induces. This study focuses on the ventrolateral (VMHvl) and dorsomedial (VMHdm) part of the ventromedial hypothalamus, and the medial amygdala (MeA), that are essential regions in the defensive pathway. Our results revealed significant morphological effects of ELS in the VMHvl neurons, but not the VMHdm and MeA. EE reduced the effects of ELS in the VMHvl. However, no significant effect of EE was observed in the VMHdm and the MeA. This study hence aims to provide further insights on the effects of MS and EE in adulthood on the defensive pathway. Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences 2016-11-16T08:53:10Z 2016-11-16T08:53:10Z 2016 Final Year Project (FYP) http://hdl.handle.net/10356/69177 en Nanyang Technological University 36 p. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic DRNTU::Science
spellingShingle DRNTU::Science
Ho, Bernice Huiying
Effects of short environmental enrichment in adulthood on neuronal changes in defensive pathway following early-life stress
description Early-life stress (ELS) have been attributed to psychological issues in the long-term. Maternal separation (MS) is a type of ELS where the offspring is separated from the mother, dysregulating the hypothalamic-pituitary (HPA) axis, a stress regulatory circuit. Behavioral studies suggested that chronic-stress compromises on the defensive pathway. Effects of ELS in the defensive pathway have yet to be clearly elucidated, and this study aims to bridge this gap in understanding. Additionally, this study will determine if short periods of environmental enrichment (EE) in adulthood can rescue the effects of ELS. Neuronal remodeling is affected by stress and stress related hormones, and would be indicative of effects that ELS induces. This study focuses on the ventrolateral (VMHvl) and dorsomedial (VMHdm) part of the ventromedial hypothalamus, and the medial amygdala (MeA), that are essential regions in the defensive pathway. Our results revealed significant morphological effects of ELS in the VMHvl neurons, but not the VMHdm and MeA. EE reduced the effects of ELS in the VMHvl. However, no significant effect of EE was observed in the VMHdm and the MeA. This study hence aims to provide further insights on the effects of MS and EE in adulthood on the defensive pathway.
author2 Rupshi Mitra
author_facet Rupshi Mitra
Ho, Bernice Huiying
format Final Year Project
author Ho, Bernice Huiying
author_sort Ho, Bernice Huiying
title Effects of short environmental enrichment in adulthood on neuronal changes in defensive pathway following early-life stress
title_short Effects of short environmental enrichment in adulthood on neuronal changes in defensive pathway following early-life stress
title_full Effects of short environmental enrichment in adulthood on neuronal changes in defensive pathway following early-life stress
title_fullStr Effects of short environmental enrichment in adulthood on neuronal changes in defensive pathway following early-life stress
title_full_unstemmed Effects of short environmental enrichment in adulthood on neuronal changes in defensive pathway following early-life stress
title_sort effects of short environmental enrichment in adulthood on neuronal changes in defensive pathway following early-life stress
publishDate 2016
url http://hdl.handle.net/10356/69177
_version_ 1759855404469190656