Can Early Life Stress Engender Biological Resilience?: Commentary

Early life is a sensitive period in which social experience provides essential information for normal development (Johnson and Blasco Pediatrics in Review, 18(7), 224-242, 1997). Studies have shown that having a loving, primary caregiver early in life acts as a protective factor against social and emotional maladjustments later in life (Egeland and Hiester Child Development, 66(2), 474-485, 1995), while the exposure to childhood adversities, such as child abuse and neglect, have been associated with increased risk of developing diseases later in life (Felitti et al. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245-258, 1998). Data based on reports by American child protective service agencies estimated that with little change over the last four years, more than 700,000 children were victims of child abuse and neglect in the US alone every year (Child Trends Data Bank 2019). The biological mechanisms involved in the associations between childhood adversities and disease development are not known, but it is likely that child abuse and neglect do influence fundamental biological processes (Mehta et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110(20), 8302-8307, 2013) and epigenetic alteration has been suggested as one such biological mechanism regulating these interactions (Tammen et al. Molecular Aspects of Medicine, 34(4), 753-764, 2013).