Pre-Natal Stress Affecting Glutamatergic Transmission: Celebrities in the Spotlight

 When I scrolled down under the search tab, “Kanye,”, I discovered Kanye West has been in People’s Magazine since before 2015. Being in the constant spotlight of the paparazzi affects not only his private life, but his family’s. The pressure to perform a certain way when the camera is rolling affects his physical and mental health, as well as his children’s physical and mental health.

    While presenting in class, Dr. Monsheel Sodhi discussed her findings concerning the pre-natal restrictive treatment of male rats to induce RNA editing to reduce glutamatergic transmission to the hippocampus, leading to brain developmental issues and psychiatric illnesses. Her research dealt specifically with seeing that RNA editing has an impact on social interaction and that anti-psychotics can help heal these behaviors. In this article, this stress described increases the reduction of glutamatergic receptor RNA editing for specifically Glu 2-4 which were the only glutamate AMPA receptors to correlate with social interaction in male mice.  This decrease in RNA editing leads to a decrease in AMPA receptor activation in the hippocampus which means less synaptic activation. This process parallels the effects of stress, as it decreases AMPA excitation. Shown in a mouse example, changes in the hippocampal glutamate receptor RNA editing are shown in adulthood after stress conditioning. However, testing these effects against Clozapine and Haloperidol yielded that Clozapine healed stress deficits in the glutamatergic receptor Glu2A RNA editing, normalizing these social interaction behaviors only for male mice.

     Going off of this research, and how it relates to the effects of anxiety and stress of the human body, I immediately jumped to world leaders and people in power, those with the global lens on them. To get the world’s view though, celebrities and media stars are individuals more impacted by these results. Media stars undergo pressure from their company, agents, fans, stalkers, as well as other life events that risk being exposed constantly, creating the capacity to make reductions in the hippocampal Glu2A RNA editing, leading to socially withdrawn behavioral effects. For example, Kanye has made contradictory statements denouncing mental health while he steps away from the stoplight to support the recovery of his own.

    The sad reality is that these private moments caught on camera for entertainment purposes can cause extreme stress (or post-natal stress), but these types of reality shows will continue due to the amount of profit they make for producers and sponsors. They advertise celebrities’ struggles to increase coverage, even with the knowledge of these negative effects, like People Magazine writing articles only concerned with “raw” moments on a “reality” show to gain traction for a brand people want.

Works Cited:

Bristow, G. C., Dong, E., Nwabuisi-Heath, E., Gentile, S., Guidotti, A., & Sodhi, M. (2021). Deficits of hippocampal RNA editing and social interaction resulting from prenatal stress are mitigated by clozapine. In bioRxiv (p. 2021.02.02.429408). https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.02.429408

Rubenstein, J., & Maslow, N. (2016, February 17). Is Kanye west okay? Amid questions about mental health, a close friend tells PEOPLE “I haven’t felt personally concerned.” PEOPLE. https://people.com/celebrity/kanye-wests-friend-not-concerned-about-rappers-mental-health/