P-395 - Early life stress, stress-resilience/susceptibility and oxidative stress

Abstract

Adverse experiences during early life contribute to the development of psychiatric conditions later in life. In fact, young children who experience stressful traumatic event(s) during early life, a sensitive developmental period, are considered highly vulnerable to psychiatric disorders in adult life. Interestingly, not all children who experience stressful events are equally at risk of developing later life psychiatric disorders. Some are resilient in spite of being exposed to the same risk factors, while others are susceptible. The mechanistic basis for resilience/susceptibility is not clear. Using an early life stress model of Sprague Dawley rats, the mechanisms governing this phenotype segregation were revealed. Depression-susceptible phenotype is associated with high oxidative stress, low antioxidant status, defective redox-sensitive Nrf2 transcription factor and hyperactive NF-KB transcription factor, selectively in the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) area of the brain. The resistant phenotype displayed low oxidative stress, high antioxidant status, activated Nrf2 and inactivated NF-KB pathways.