The effect of early-life stress on cardiac function in later life

This The effect of early-life stress on cardiac function in later life project is offered at University of Dundee.

This The effect of early-life stress on cardiac function in later life project at University of Dundee is concerned with characterising and comparing the phenotypic and biochemical properties of hearts from control mice with those that have received fragmented maternal care with a view to determining a mechanistic explanation for the observed differences in cardiac function between animal groups.

Context

Stressful experiences in early childhood can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in later life. How early-life stress (ELS) influences susceptibility to CVD onset remains largely unknown. Adverse childhood experiences can be mimicked in mice through exposing young pups to fragmented maternal care during the first 10 days of life. In this model system, by 10 weeks of age, the hearts of male but not female mice beat erratically with significant variations in both heart rate and % ejection fraction between beats.

The successful Ph.D. student will have the opportunity

• to learn how to handle animals and carry out both PV loop and ultrasound measurements of cardiac function

• to gain exposure to molecular techniques such as Western Blot, proteomics, RNA seq and bioinformatics.