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Annual Research Review: Early adversity, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis, and child psychopathology
Kalsea J Koss1, Megan R Gunnar2
1Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, Office of Population Research;, and the Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
Background:
Research on early adversity, stress biology, and child development has grown exponentially in recent years.
Findings:
We review the current evidence for the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis as a stress-mediating mechanism between various forms of childhood adversity and psychopathology. We begin with a review of the neurobiology of the axis and evidence for relations between early adversity-HPA axis activity and HPA axis activity-psychopathology, as well as discuss the role of regulatory mechanisms and sensitive periods in development.
Conclusions:
We call attention to critical gaps in the literature to highlight next steps in this research including focus on developmental timing, sex differences, stress buffering, and epigenetic regulation. A better understanding of individual differences in the adversity-HPA axis-psychopathology associations will require continued work addressing how multiple biological and behavioral systems work in concert to shape development.
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