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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2019 Sep 15.
Published in final edited form as: Neuropharmacology. 2018 Aug 4;140:76–85. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2018.07.010

Figure 7: Schematic diagram of putative mechanisms by which prenatal stress induces excessive alcohol intake comorbid with anxiety behaviors in adult offspring.

Figure 7:

Epigenetic regulation of gene expression is controlled by remodeling of chromatin structure. Specifically, chromatin condensation and relaxation block or allow the accessibility of gene promoters to the transcriptional machinery. Prenatal stress induces increased DNMTs and HDACs (Dong et al., 2014, 2016, Zheng et al., 2016), leading to closed chromatin and to transcriptional silencing of genes associated with synaptic formation and plasticity, which may be responsible for the dendritic spine density, possibly operative in regulating anxiety-like and excessive alcohol intake phenotype in adult offspring.