VetSRev
Database of veterinary systematic reviews
Database of veterinary systematic reviews
Brain Neurosci Adv (2020) 4: 2398212820978049
Repeated maternal separation is the most widely used pre-clinical approach to investigate the relationship between early-life chronic stress and its neuropsychiatric and physical consequences. In this systematic review, we identified 46 studies that conducted repeated maternal separation or single-episode maternal separation and reported measurements of interleukin-1b, interleukin-6, interleukin-10, tumour necrosis factor-alpha, or microglia activation and density. We report that in the short-term and in the context of later-life stress, repeated maternal separation has pro-inflammatory immune consequences in diverse tissues. Repeated maternal separation animals exhibit greater microglial activation and elevated pro-inflammatory cytokine signalling in key brain regions implicated in human psychiatric disorders. Notably, repeated maternal separation generally has no long-term effect on cytokine expression in any tissue in the absence of later-life stress. These observations suggest that the elevated inflammatory signalling that has been reported in humans with a history of early-life stress may be the joint consequence of ongoing stressor exposure together with potentiated neural and/or immune responsiveness to stressors. Finally, our findings provide detailed guidance for future studies interrogating the causal roles of early-life stress and inflammation in disorders such as major depression.
Dutcher, E. G., Pama, E. A. C., Lynall, M. E., Khan, S., Clatworthy, M. R., Robbins, T. W., Bullmore, E. T., & Dalley, J. W. (2020). Early-life stress and inflammation: A systematic review of a key experimental approach in rodents. Brain Neurosci Adv, 4, 2398212820978049. https://doi.org/10.1177/2398212820978049 cytokines, immune system, Cognition, depression, conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication, and is a, chronic stress, consultant for Greenfield Bioventures, Cassava, Heptares, and Arcadia. J.W.D. has, early-life adversity, Maternal separation, neuroimmune responsiveness, of this article: T.W.R. is a consultant and receives royalties from Cambridge, received research grants from Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH and GlaxoSmithKline., received research grants from GlaxoSmithKline and Shionogi, remaining authors declare no conflicts of interest., S.K. is employed by GlaxoSmithKline. E.T.B. is a consultant for Sosei Heptares. The