The prefrontal cortex, a brain region implicated in the psychopathology of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, is one target of maltreatment (Chai et al., 2011). We have uncovered altered DNA methylation at the Bdnf gene in both whole (Roth et al., 2009a) and medial prefrontal cortex across the lifespan in maltreated animals (Blaze et al., 2013). Methylation of Reelin was altered 24 hours following the final bout of maltreatment, however, methylation normalized by adolescence (Blaze et al., 2013). Increased Bdnf methylation was found to be specific to neuronal, rather than glial, cells (Blaze and Roth, 2017). Levels of the epigenetic regulators Dnmt1, Dnmt3a, MeCP2, Gadd45b, and Hdac1 were all found to be altered in the medial prefrontal cortex of maltreated male adult rats, while only Gadd45b expression was altered in females (Blaze and Roth, 2013). Females also displayed reduced Histone 3 lysine 9/14 acetylation at the Bdnf exon IV promoter (Blaze et al., 2015). Alterations in both gene specific (i.e. Bdnf) and global methylation have been found in the amygdala and dorsal and ventral subregions of the hippocampus of maltreated animals
