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Amygdala Allostasis and Early Life Adversity: Considering Excitotoxicity and Inescapability in the Sequelae of Stress

Early life adversity (ELA), such as child maltreatment or child poverty, engenders problems with emotional and behavioral regulation. In the quest to understand the neurobiological sequelae and mechanisms of risk, the amygdala has been of major focus. While the basic functions of this region make it...

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Autores principales: Hanson, Jamie L., Nacewicz, Brendon M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8203824/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34140882
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.624705
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author Hanson, Jamie L.
Nacewicz, Brendon M.
author_facet Hanson, Jamie L.
Nacewicz, Brendon M.
author_sort Hanson, Jamie L.
collection PubMed
description Early life adversity (ELA), such as child maltreatment or child poverty, engenders problems with emotional and behavioral regulation. In the quest to understand the neurobiological sequelae and mechanisms of risk, the amygdala has been of major focus. While the basic functions of this region make it a strong candidate for understanding the multiple mental health issues common after ELA, extant literature is marked by profound inconsistencies, with reports of larger, smaller, and no differences in regional volumes of this area. We believe integrative models of stress neurodevelopment, grounded in “allostatic load,” will help resolve inconsistencies in the impact of ELA on the amygdala. In this review, we attempt to connect past research studies to new findings with animal models of cellular and neurotransmitter mediators of stress buffering to extreme fear generalization onto testable research and clinical concepts. Drawing on the greater impact of inescapability over unpredictability in animal models, we propose a mechanism by which ELA aggravates an exhaustive cycle of amygdala expansion and subsequent toxic-metabolic damage. We connect this neurobiological sequela to psychosocial mal/adaptation after ELA, bridging to behavioral studies of attachment, emotion processing, and social functioning. Lastly, we conclude this review by proposing a multitude of future directions in preclinical work and studies of humans that suffered ELA.
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spelling pubmed-82038242021-06-16 Amygdala Allostasis and Early Life Adversity: Considering Excitotoxicity and Inescapability in the Sequelae of Stress Hanson, Jamie L. Nacewicz, Brendon M. Front Hum Neurosci Human Neuroscience Early life adversity (ELA), such as child maltreatment or child poverty, engenders problems with emotional and behavioral regulation. In the quest to understand the neurobiological sequelae and mechanisms of risk, the amygdala has been of major focus. While the basic functions of this region make it a strong candidate for understanding the multiple mental health issues common after ELA, extant literature is marked by profound inconsistencies, with reports of larger, smaller, and no differences in regional volumes of this area. We believe integrative models of stress neurodevelopment, grounded in “allostatic load,” will help resolve inconsistencies in the impact of ELA on the amygdala. In this review, we attempt to connect past research studies to new findings with animal models of cellular and neurotransmitter mediators of stress buffering to extreme fear generalization onto testable research and clinical concepts. Drawing on the greater impact of inescapability over unpredictability in animal models, we propose a mechanism by which ELA aggravates an exhaustive cycle of amygdala expansion and subsequent toxic-metabolic damage. We connect this neurobiological sequela to psychosocial mal/adaptation after ELA, bridging to behavioral studies of attachment, emotion processing, and social functioning. Lastly, we conclude this review by proposing a multitude of future directions in preclinical work and studies of humans that suffered ELA. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-06-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8203824/ /pubmed/34140882 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.624705 Text en Copyright © 2021 Hanson and Nacewicz. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Human Neuroscience
Hanson, Jamie L.
Nacewicz, Brendon M.
Amygdala Allostasis and Early Life Adversity: Considering Excitotoxicity and Inescapability in the Sequelae of Stress
title Amygdala Allostasis and Early Life Adversity: Considering Excitotoxicity and Inescapability in the Sequelae of Stress
title_full Amygdala Allostasis and Early Life Adversity: Considering Excitotoxicity and Inescapability in the Sequelae of Stress
title_fullStr Amygdala Allostasis and Early Life Adversity: Considering Excitotoxicity and Inescapability in the Sequelae of Stress
title_full_unstemmed Amygdala Allostasis and Early Life Adversity: Considering Excitotoxicity and Inescapability in the Sequelae of Stress
title_short Amygdala Allostasis and Early Life Adversity: Considering Excitotoxicity and Inescapability in the Sequelae of Stress
title_sort amygdala allostasis and early life adversity: considering excitotoxicity and inescapability in the sequelae of stress
topic Human Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8203824/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34140882
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.624705
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