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Molecular Psychiatry outcome of hormonal changes. Hormones are known to affect adult neurogenesis, even postpartum. 4 However, in a recent study performed by Shingo et al., 8 it was shown that pregnancy-related hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone, have no effect on adult hippocampal neurogenesis, with the exception of prolactin, which directly induces neurogenesis only in the olfactory bulb of pregnant mice. These results led us to consider the possibility that the pregnancyinduced reduction in neurogenesis might not be directly caused by hormonal changes, but rather may be an outcome of other physiological adaptations to pregnancy, such as pregnancy-induced changes in the immune response.

Our group recently showed that the immune system and, in particular, the adaptive immune response contribute to adult hippocampal neurogenesis. 3 During pregnancy, to enable the survival of a …