Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Early life experience shapes an individual for a lifetime. While risk factors for mental health disorders are frequent in the population and intensely studied, much less is known about protective factors that allow for resilience in the face of adversity. Interestingly, enhanced maternal care in early life is associated with resilience to stress and improved learning and memory throughout life. Enhanced maternal care is capable of altering gene expression and the resulting epigenetic code in the hypothalamus of the brain. By studying a well established rodent model of enhanced maternal care with state-of-the-art technologies it will be possible to precisely map these protective epigenetic changes in individual neurons and begin to understand the molecular mechanisms behind them. Once identified, these changes can then be targeted by modern biotechnology and eventually be translated as a novel treatment for human mental health disorders.