Prenatal programming of postnatal plasticity revisited—And extended

Abstract

Two sets of evidence reviewed herein, one indicating that prenatal stress is associated with elevated behavioral and physiological dysregulation and the other that such phenotypic functioning is itself associated with heightened susceptibility to positive and negative environmental influences postnatally, raises the intriguing hypothesis first advanced by Pluess and Belsky (2011) that prenatal stress fosters, promotes, or “programs” postnatal developmental plasticity. Here we review further evidence consistent with this proposition, including new experimental research systematically manipulating both prenatal stress and postnatal rearing. Collectively this work would seem to explain why prenatal stress has so consistently been linked to problematic development: stresses encountered prenatally are likely to continue postnatally, thereby adversely affecting the development of children programmed (by prenatal stress) to be especially susceptible to environmental effects. Less investigated are the potential benefits prenatal stress may promote, due to increased plasticity, when the postnatal environment proves to be favorable. Future directions of research pertaining to potential mechanisms instantiating postnatal plasticity and moderators of such prenatal-programming effects are outlined.

Neonatal brain volume as a marker of differential susceptibility to parenting quality and its association with neurodevelopment across early childhood

“…Further, to gain a better understanding which neurobiological mechanisms underlie increased environmental susceptibility in individuals born with larger brain volumes in terms of normal and pathological development, controlled experimental studies in animal models aiming at manipulating neurodevelopmental processes that will affect neonatal brain size are warranted. Interestingly, it has been proposed that the prenatal environment may program postnatal susceptibility to environmental conditions including parenting ( Beijers et al, 2020 ; Hartman and Belsky, 2018 ), with stress-sensitive neurotrophic factors during fetal brain development potentially playing a role ( Hellström et al, 2016 ). We have previously reported that maternal childhood maltreatment was associated with smaller neonatal brain size ( Moog et al, 2018 ), a phenotype that we here observed to underlie lower sensitivity to parenting quality.…”

Schizophrenia: Developmental Variability Interacts with Risk Factors to Cause the Disorder

“…The origin of individual differences in susceptibility is considered genetic [74] or set in the early, including prenatal, environment. [52,[75][76][77] The DSE is the theory that comes closest to our model. In fact, DSE could be viewed as one particular instance of the variabilityrisk model.…”

“…In line with the DSE theory, preliminary data suggest that prenatal stress is associated with markers of increased plasticity of cognitive and/or psychological traits in children. [76] In D. melanogaster, changes in temperature modify the degree of variability in the developmental response (wing size and shape) to genetic factors. [79] Other studies suggest that environmental factors like temperature, pollution, and urbanicity in animals [87][88][89] enhance developmental instability, i.e., variability in response to stochastic factors.…”

Stressful Newborn Memories: Pre-Conceptual, In Utero, and Postnatal Events

“…Early stages of embryonic development are characterized by heightened brain plasticity that is adversely affected by exposure to environmental insults (13). Complex gene environment interactions during critical early developmental periods may have lasting effects and result in adult psychopathology (14, 15). Maternal stress exposure, anxiety, and depression during pregnancy are considered in utero adverse experiences and have been associated with low birth weight (LBW) and future health problems (16–24).…”