Editorial: Effects of Early Life Stress on Neurodevelopment and Health: Bridging the Gap Between Human Clinical Studies and Animal Models

Editorial on the Research Topic Effects of Early Life Stress on Neurodevelopment and Health: Bridging the Gap Between Human Clinical Studies and Animal Models Early life adversity (ELA) is a broad term used to describe environmental conditions that negatively impact normal development (Shonkoff et al., 2012). The authors review novel mechanistic insights from recent studies in rodents and discuss specific examples of how insights from animal studies coupled with the development of novel myelinating agents provide a promising new pharmacological frontier to treat cognitive and behavioral consequences of ELA in humans. [...]Georg et al. used machine learning to identify variables that increase parental stress in response to infants with early regulatory disorder (i.e., colic). Simply put, low-moderate levels of adversity lead to relative amygdala expansion whereas sustained and severe activation of the amygdala during childhood and adolescence leads to excitatory neurotoxic-mediated dendritic atrophy, possibly cell death, and a reduction in amygdala volume.