Stress, alcohol and infection during early development: A brief review of common outcomes and mechanisms

Abstract

Although stress is an adaptive physiological response to deal with adverse conditions, its occurrence during the early stages of life, such as infancy or adolescence, can induce adaptations in multiple physiological systems, including the reproductive axis, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the limbic cortex and the immune system. These early changes have consequences in adult life, as seen in the physiological and behavioural responses to stress. This review highlights the impact of several stress challenges incurred at various stages of development (perinatal, juvenile, adolescent periods) and how the developmental timing of early-life stress confers unique physiological adaptations that may persist across the lifespan. In doing so, we emphasise how intrinsic sex differences in the stress response might contribute to sex-specific vulnerabilities, the molecular processes underlying stress in the adult, and potential therapeutic interventions to mitigate the effects of early stage stress, including the novel molecular mechanism of SUMOylation as a possible key target of HPA regulation during early-life stress.

Keywords: HPA axis; alcohol consumption; immune challenge; maternal separation; neonatal stress.

Fig. 1

Common outcomes induced by early insults. Different developmental challenges such as MS, alcohol consumption and immune challenges can induce changes in the immune system, which in turn affects the adult neuroendocrine response, probably by endocannabinoid rearrangement, and brain development. Some of the effects inducing major neurological diseases in adulthood could be mediated by FKBP51 SUMOylation mechanism.