simoneanza

Early prenatal but not postnatal glucocorticoid exposure is associated with enhanced HPA axis activity into adulthood in a wild primate

🔬 Our latest research on stress physiology is published as a preprint! 🐒 🧬 Abstract: our study delves into the intricate biology of developmental plasticity in mammals, focusing on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. We explored the effects of timing of maternal glucocorticoids and its impact on offspring HPA axis activity, focusing on wild macaques inContinue reading “Early prenatal but not postnatal glucocorticoid exposure is associated with enhanced HPA axis activity into adulthood in a wild primate”

My Exciting New Chapter: Joining the Prestigious World of Computational Metagenomics

I’m thrilled to share with you all about the incredible new chapter in my professional journey. This November, I embarked on an adventure that’s both challenging and exciting – I’ve joined the renowned Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrative Biology (CIBIO) at the University of Trento as a Postdoctoral Fellow! The CIBIO – A HubContinue reading “My Exciting New Chapter: Joining the Prestigious World of Computational Metagenomics”

What is the gut microbiota and how does it affect our health?

We are a super-organism composed of a galaxy of bacteria We usually think of the human body as a relatively closed system: over time we have even coined the term innards precisely to define the parts “inside” our bodies-the viscera and especially the intestines. Actually, the shape of the human body is anything but closedContinue reading “What is the gut microbiota and how does it affect our health?”

Prenatal maternal stress effects in wild Assamese macaques (Macaca assamensis)

Across mammals, females experiencing adverse conditions during gestation can transfer the stress information to the embryo/fetus via the placenta (circulating glucocorticoids), and induce epigenetic programming of neurological, immune, metabolic, and reproductive functions of the offspring. However, the nature and persistence of such effects (adaptive vs detrimental; short-term vs long-term) is still under debate. My Ph.D.Continue reading “Prenatal maternal stress effects in wild Assamese macaques (Macaca assamensis)”