Long‐Term Impact of Early Life Events on Physiology and Behaviour

Abstract

).This review discusses the effects of stress and nutrition throughout development and summarises studies investigating how exposure to stress or alterations in nutrition during the pre-conception, prenatal and early postnatal periods can affect the long-term health of an individual. In general, the data presented here suggest that that anything signalling potential adverse conditions later in life, such as high levels of stress or low levels of food availability, will lead to alterations in the offspring, possibly of an epigenetic nature, preparing the offspring for these conditions later in life. However, when similar environmental conditions are not met in adulthood, these alterations may have maladaptive consequences, resulting in obesity and heightened stress sensitivity. The data also suggest that the mechanism underlying these adult phenotypes might be dependent on the type and the timing of exposure.

Prenatal stress-induced alterations in major physiological systems correlate with gut microbiota composition in adulthood

“…Prenatal stress has been recently associated with an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders (Boersma et al, 2014). Animal studies have demonstrated that PNS can interfere with foetal CNS development resulting in altered neuroplasticity, re-programming of the HPA axis, cognitive impairment and behavioural abnormalities later in life (Morley-Fletcher et al, 2013).…”

“…One form of in utero adversity that has received a growing appreciation is maternal psychosocial stress during pregnancy or prenatal stress (PNS). PNS, including maternal depression and anxiety, affects a significant number of pregnant women (Bennett et al, 2004) and is associated with a higher prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and schizophrenia (Boersma et al, 2014;Ronald et al, 2011). While the causative molecular basis of these associations is still the subject of intensive research, it is clear that the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) stress axis is shifted towards a hyperactive mode (Glover et al, 2010;Weinstock, 2008), which is therefore likely to affect many physiological systems in the offspring.…”

Stressful Life Events and Child Anxiety: Examining Parent and Child Mediators

“…The current study examined total number of life events rather than specific types of life events due to the limited range of events within specific domains and global rather than domain specific anxiety symptoms. However, prior studies have supported the correlation of specific types of life events with the onset of particular anxiety disorders; for instance, the arrival of a step-parent has been linked with symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder [11], separation from caregivers and marital discord has been linked with symptoms of separation anxiety [67], and episodes of teasing during childhood have been linked with symptoms of social phobia during adolescence [68]. Additionally, we did not have data on the timing of life events aside from whether they occurred within the 6 months prior to the study or ever.…”

Failure to upregulate Agrp and Orexin in response to activity based anorexia in weight loss vulnerable rats characterized by passive stress coping and prenatal stress experience

“…To specifically study the effects of the prenatal environment, maternal exposure to mild chronic variable stress during gestation has been employed (Koenig et al, 2005). Rodents exposed to prenatal stress (PNS) were shown to have altered stress reactivity (reviewed in (Boersma et al, 2014a)).…”