College of Psychiatric and Neurologic Pharmacists

Early life adversity is known to have profound effects on the development and function of neural circuits that control emotional behaviors (). The result in humans is a greatly enhanced predisposition to develop depression and anxiety disorders or addiction throughout the individual's lifetime. Rodent models of chronic stress have begun to identify the critical periods of early life adversity along with the brain circuits and molecules that control pathologic behaviors relevant to these psychiatric disorders. In this issue, Wei et al. () provides new evidence for a critical window before weaning, whereby increased levels of glucocorticoid receptors (GRs) in the forebrain lead to lifelong increases in exploratory-based anxiety behavior and cocaine-induced locomotor sensitization. Associated with these behavioral changes are vast lifelong transcriptional changes in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus (hipp) and, to a lesser extent, the nucleus accumbens (NAc), brain structures critically involved in stress disorders and addiction. These data highlight the potential importance of developmental experience in controlling normal brain function and behavior in adulthood.

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