Stress, Glucocorticoids, and Brain Development in Rodent Models

Organ systems are sensitive to malleability by environmental stressors during times of rapid development and biological transitions. For the developing nervous system, there are three windows of heightened sensitivity to environmental stressors, the prenatal, neonatal, and adolescent periods, although the brain maintains some sensitivity throughout the lifespan. Glucocorticoid hormones are the signaling molecules that underlie the effects of environmental stressors, able to affect all aspects of neuronal development from cell birth to cell death. This chapter provides an overview of how environmental stressors result in long-lasting changes during the different windows of brain development. The extent to which stress-induced developmental changes are adaptive or maladaptive depends on the neural region, the severity and duration of the stressor exposure, the sex and genotype of the individual, and the quality of the individual’s environment in life stages beyond the stress exposures.