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High stress levels in babies and young children could play a role in conditions such as autism, depression and mental retardation, according to researchers at the University of California, Irvine College of Medicine.
The researchers found that early stress could cause poor development of the brain’s communication zones. The findings could point to potential treatments for certain mental disorders.
UCI neurology professor Tallie Baram and her colleagues found that high amounts of corticotropin-releasing hormone, or CRH, a substance found in the part of the brain where learning and memory occur, stunt the growth of dendrites. Those are branch-like protrusions of neurons,brain cells that send and receive messages.
Communication among brain cells is critical for learning and memory. In brain disorders where learning and other thought processes are disrupted, dendrites have been found to be small or poorly developed, thanks to higher levels of CRH.
“The activation of stress hormones and molecules seems to initiate a complex cascade of brain effects that is related to depression and dementia,” Baram said in a release. “This study reveals a novel role of CRH in this cascade.”
Researchers from Neurocrine Biosciences Inc. of San Diego and the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich joined Baram and her colleagues in the study.
Full results of the study appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a professional journal.
The National Institutes of Health provided funding.
PacifiCare in Heart Study
Cypress-based PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. and its Prescription Solutions have signed on as administrators in a congestive heart failure study on Medicare beneficiaries in California and Arizona. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is sponsoring the study.
The study is set to last three years and look at prescription drugs, access to nursing advice, daily weight and symptom monitoring and cardiologist consultations with participants’ personal doctors. It is based on a program that cut hospitalizations by 50% for people with the disease.
Congestive heart failure occurs when any of the heart’s chambers loses its ability to keep up with the amount of the heart’s blood flow and usually comes about as a result of other conditions like coronary artery disease and hypertension. An estimated 157,000 Californians and 27,000 Arizonans have the condition.
Besides PacifiCare and Prescription Solutions, Reno, Nev.-based Alere Medical Inc. and Q-Med Inc. of Eatontown, N.J., also have signed on as study administrators.
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