This preliminary study explored associations among childhood trauma (loss of a parent or sexual abuse in childhood), maternal self-efficacy, and leukocyte gene expression (mRNA) of oxytocin and glucocorticoid receptors (OXTR and NR3C1) in mothers of infants.
We measured methylation levels in selected NR3C1 promoter regions using DNA obtained from lymphocytes in 64 women with BN (32 selected as having a history of severe childhood abuse and 32 selected as having no such history) and 32 comparison women with no ED or history of childhood abuse.
Here we present DNA methylation profiles spanning 6.5 million base pairs centered at the NR3C1 gene in the hippocampus of humans who experienced abuse as children and nonabused controls.
Interaction of the BcII glucocorticoid receptor polymorphism and childhood abuse in Bulimia Nervosa (BN): relationship to BN and to associated trait manifestations.
We explored the extent to which childhood abuse (physical or sexual), variants of a main glucocorticoid receptor (GR) polymorphism (Bcl1), or their interaction, differentiated women with and without BN.
Childhood sexual abuse, its severity and the number of type of maltreatments positively correlated with NR3C1 methylation (P=6.16 × 10(-8), 5.18 × 10(-7) and 1.25 × 10(-9), respectively).
Studies in animal models of early stress and in humans who have experienced childhood trauma or abuse suggest that these events can lead to long-lasting epigenetic changes in the glucocorticoid receptor gene brought about by hypermethylation of a key regulatory component.
We examined epigenetic differences in a neuron-specific glucocorticoid receptor (NR3C1) promoter between postmortem hippocampus obtained from suicide victims with a history of childhood abuse and those from either suicide victims with no childhood abuse or controls.