SynthesisNeuroscience and biobehavioral reviews2022
Enduring effects of early-life adversity on reward processes: A systematic review and meta-analysis of animal studies.
Synthesis in Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- A systematic review of preclinical studies targeted toward the management of co-existing functional gastrointestinal disorders, stress, and gut dysbiosis.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- Adverse Life Experiences and Brain Function: A Meta-Analysis of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings.JAMA network open · 2023Pooled it
- Early life adversity disrupts adult social reward motivation.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Prefrontal cortex development and its implications in mental illness.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Annual Research Review: Exposure to environmental chemicals and psychosocial stress and the development of children's learning difficulties.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2025Review
- Early-life stress sensitizes response to future stress: Evidence and mechanisms.Neurobiology of stress · 2025Review
- Task-Rest Reconfiguration Efficiency of the Reward Network Across Adolescence and Its Association With Early Life Stress and Depressive Symptoms.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2025Article
- Sex- and reward-dependent effects of early life scarcity-adversity on adolescent behavioral responses to natural rewards.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2025Article
- Modulation of gut microbiota composition due to early weaning stress induces depressive behavior during the juvenile period in mice.Animal microbiome · 2024Article
- The role of epigenetic mechanisms in the long-term effects of early-life adversity and mother-infant relationship on physiology and behavior of offspring in laboratory rats and mice.Developmental psychobiology · 2024Review
- Thyroid hormones mediate the impact of early-life stress on ventral tegmental area gene expression and behavior.Hormones and behavior · 2024Article
- Pitfalls and potential: Translating the two-hit model of early life stress from pre-clinical non-human experiments to human samples.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2024Article
- Sex differences in addiction-relevant behavioral outcomes in rodents following early life stress.Addiction neuroscience · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Two-thirds of individuals experience adversity during childhood such as neglect, abuse or highly-stressful events. Early-life adversity (ELA) increases the life-long risk of developing mood and substance use disorders. Reward-related deficits has emerged as a key endophenotype of such psychiatric disorders. Animal models are invaluable for studying how ELA leads to reward deficits. However, the existing literature is heterogenous with difficult to reconcile findings. To create an overview, we conducted a systematic review containing multiple meta-analyses regarding the effects of ELA on reward processes overall and on specific aspects of reward processing in animal models. A comprehensive search identified 120 studies. Most studies omitted key details resulting in unclear risk of bias. Overall meta-analysis showed that ELA significantly reduced reward behaviors (SMD: -0.42 [-0.60; -0.24]). The magnitude of ELA effects significantly increased with longer exposure. When reward domains were analyzed separately, ELA only significantly dampened reward responsiveness (SMD: -0.525[-0.786; -0.264]) and social reward processing (SMD: -0.374 [-0.663; -0.084]), suggesting that ELA might lead to deficits in specific reward domains.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.