Neurobehavioral risk is associated with gestational exposure to stress hormones

Abstract

The developmental origins of disease or fetal programming model predict that early exposures to threat or adverse conditions have lifelong consequences that result in harmful outcomes for health. The maternal endocrine ‘fight or flight’ system is a source of programming information for the human fetus to detect threats and adjust their developmental trajectory for survival. Fetal exposures to intrauterine conditions including elevated stress hormones increase the risk for a spectrum of health outcomes depending on the timing of exposure, the timetable of organogenesis and the developmental milestones assessed. Recent prospective studies, reviewed here, have documented the neurodevelopmental consequences of fetal exposures to the trajectory of stress hormones over the course of gestation. These studies have shown that fetal exposures to biological markers of adversity have significant and largely negative consequences for fetal, infant and child emotional and cognitive regulation and reduced volume in specific brain structures.

Keywords::

• cortisol
• CRH
• developmental origins of disease
• fetal development
• fetal programming
• infant development
• predictive adaptive response
• pregnancy
• prenatal stress
• stress

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the expert assistance of Kendra Leak, Cheryl Crippen, Megan Faulkner, Christina Canino and Natalie Hernandez, and to the families who participated in our studies.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors were supported by NIH grants NS-41298, HD-51852 and HD-28413 to CA Sandman and by HD-50662 and HD-65823 to EP Davis. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.