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Brain regions involved in cognitive and emotional processing, such as the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus, continue to develop postnatally. How do genes and early experiences interact in altering the trajectory of development? Researchers addressed this question by examining adult hippocampal neurogenesis in mice from strains that in adulthood have a genetically programmed, baseline neurogenesis level that is high (C57) or low (DBA). From birth, the mice were raised by their own mothers or by adoptive mothers from the same strain or from strains with an inherently high or low level of positive attention to infants.
Neither adoption itself nor the infant's strain affected neurogenesis in adulthood. However, DBA mice (but not C57 mice) raised…