Infant neglect surfaces in mid life.

• Position: Central Nervous System

Evidence continues to mount that prenatal and early experience can have profound long-term effects on the developing central nervous system and its regulation of basic physiology, psychology, and immune function. Several reports demonstrate that this phenomenon is conserved across species--from the barn owl to rodents to humans--suggesting that these effects are mediated by fundamental mechanisms.

For instance, there are studies which demonstrate how maternal care can induce alterations in the gene methylation in offspring. Other research is uncovering how stresses during pregnancy and early life can affect learning and memory, as well as immune function, long after the stress has disappeared. Still others are unraveling the cellular basis for how early life stresses can lead to later cognitive impairment; the effects on adult emotional behavior from using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac during early development; and how experience dramatically can increase adult animals' adaptability to new stimuli.

Stresses such as neglect and abuse during infancy may result in memory loss and impaired cognitive abilities that manifest later in life, a University of California, Irvine, study has found. The research of rats clearly shows a late onset of slow progression of deficits in communication among brain cells in the hippocampus, a brain region involved in learning, storage, and recall of memories.

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