Consequences of early-life and adult stress
on cognition and brain
Supervisors:
Dr Karen Spencer, Dr Cedric Zimmer
Host:
School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, Scotland
Project
description: It is now widely recognised that prolonged exposure to stress
during development can have significant long-term effects on an individual’s
physiology and behaviour. Usually this developmental programming is considered
as maladaptive since it is associated with a higher risk of developing
pathologies later in life. In contrast, one recent view proposes an adaptive framework,
where shaping of physiology and behaviour by early-life conditions can enhance
fitness if early environmental conditions match those experienced across life
stages. According to this ‘environmental matching hypothesis’, negative effects
of developmental adversity may occur due to a mismatch between environmental conditions
at different life stages. Recent work in our lab has provided evidence in
favour of environmental matching: where developmental conditions can program
the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and exploratory behaviour. One
behavioural trait that has received less attention in terms of the
environmental matching hypothesis is that of cognition. However, perhaps
counterintuitively, although stress experienced in early life has permanent,
usually negative, impacts on cognitive performance, such developmental
experience may also help to buffer the impact of stress experienced during
adulthood. The aim of this project will be to determine cognitive performance
in a population of Japanese quail that have experienced differing developmental
(pre- and/or post-natal stress) and adult conditions, matching and mis-matching
across stages In addition hormonal profiles and neuroendocrine traits may be
measured to assess potential mechanisms underlying cognitive performances.
Skills
obtained: Behavioural assay, avian husbandry, radioimmunoassay, molecular
assays (qPCR).
Other
information: You will join the Mechanisms of Behaviour group within the School
of Psychology and Neuroscience, which consists of several active researchers
investigating the hormonal and neuroendocrine bases for behaviour (https://mobgroup.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/).
The group meets regularly and runs a large state of the art laboratory that
supports our multi-disciplinary research. Further details of the project can be
obtained from Karen.spencer@st-andrews.ac.uk or cz6@st-andrews.ac.uk.