Early Life Stress and the Development of the Infant Gut Microbiota: Implications for Mental Health and Neurocognitive De
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Early Life Stress and the Development of the Infant Gut Microbiota: Implications for Mental Health and Neurocognitive Development Sarah C. Vogel 1 & Natalie H. Brito 1 & Bridget L. Callaghan 2
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Purpose of Review We review the state of the literature examining associations between early life stress (ELS), gut microbiota, and neurocognitive development and mental health in animals and humans. We identify gaps in current models and areas for future research. Recent Findings ELS is associated with changes in gut microbiota, which correspond to changes in affective and cognitive functioning in both animals and humans. Some of these ELS-induced psychological changes can be remedied by supplementation with probiotics in early life, suggesting a potential area for intervention for ELS-exposed children. Prenatal stress exposure is rarely studied in humans in relation to gut microbiota, but animal work has suggested important associations between prenatal stress and fetal programming that should be tested in humans. Summary The gut microbiota plays an important role in the association between ELS, neurocognitive development, and mental health. More work is needed to fully understand these associations in humans. Keywords Gut microbiota . Neurocognitive development . Early life stress . Mental illness
Introduction Early life stress (ELS) is well-understood to have important implications for neurodevelopment and mental health. Several studies have documented that children exposed to ELS show differences in brain development [1, 2] and have increased risk for mental illness throughout the lifespan [3••, 4, 5]. Much work over the last several years has sought to elucidate the mechanisms behind these associations, with the goal of identifying pathways for unobtrusive, scalable interventions to promote healthy neurocognitive development in children exposed to ELS and ease the burden of mental illness. One
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Reproductive Psychiatry and Women's Health * Sarah C. Vogel [email protected] 1
Department of Applied Psychology, New York University, 246 Greene Street, Kimball Hall, New York, NY 10003, USA
2
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
mechanism gaining increasing attention is the system of trillions of microorganisms living within the gastrointestinal tract, known as the gut microbiota. Scientific and clinical interest in the development of the gut microbiota has expanded rapidly in the last 10 years. Research in both animals and humans has provided some insight into processes that influence the development of the gut microbiota, as well as how this system influences the maturation of neural and psychological systems related to cognition and mental health. The gut microbiota has been implicated in a wide range of outcomes, including immune functioning [6], mental health [3••], metabolic programming [7], and neurodevelopment [8••,9]. With a surging interdisciplinary foc
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