ArticleMolecular psychiatry2024
Early-life prefrontal cortex inhibition and early-life stress lead to long-lasting behavioral, transcriptional, and physiological impairments.
Article in Molecular psychiatry, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Early Life Stress on the Prefrontal Cortex Transcriptome Reveals Long-Term Downregulation of Myelin-Related Gene Expression.Brain and behavior · 2025Pooled it
- Neurodevelopmental effects of early life stress: PFC and cognition.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- Early-life stress impairs development of functional interactions and neuronal activity within prefrontal-amygdala networks in vivo.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Early life stress exposure alters brain vasculature transcriptomic profiles in areas regulating stress resilience.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Psychedelic Modulation of Excitation/Inhibition Balance: A Dual-Phase Neurodevelopmental Model.ACS chemical neuroscience · 2026Review
- The role of sensory experience in the maturation of prefrontal cortical circuits.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Early life adversity and adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): Pathways to persistence and adult susceptibility.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Review
- An Open-Source and Highly Adaptable Rodent Limited Bedding and Nesting Apparatus for Chronic Early Life Stress.eNeuro · 2025Article
- Development of the rodent prefrontal cortex: circuit formation, plasticity, and impacts of early life stress.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Early-life stress has been linked to multiple neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric deficits. Our previous studies have linked maternal presence/absence from the nest in developing rat pups to changes in prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity. Furthermore, we have shown that these changes are modulated by serotonergic signaling. Here we test whether changes in PFC activity during early life affect the developing cortex leading to behavioral alterations in the adult. We show that inhibiting the PFC of mouse pups leads to cognitive deficits in the adult comparable to those seen following maternal separation. Moreover, we show that activating the PFC during maternal separation can prevent these behavioral deficits. To test how maternal separation affects the transcriptional profile of the PFC we performed single-nucleus RNA-sequencing. Maternal separation led to differential gene expression almost exclusively in inhibitory neurons. Among others, we found changes in GABAergic and serotonergic pathways in these interneurons. Interestingly, both maternal separation and early-life PFC inhibition led to changes in physiological responses in prefrontal activity to GABAergic and serotonergic antagonists that were similar to the responses of more immature brains. Prefrontal activation during maternal separation prevented these changes. These data point to a crucial role of PFC activity during early life in behavioral expression in adulthood.
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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.