Department of Medicine, Royal Melbourne Hospital, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2011 Mar;214(1):155-73. doi: 10.1007/s00213-010-2125-z. Epub 2010 Dec 17.
Increasing evidence links exposure to stress early in life to long-term alterations in brain function, which in turn have been linked to a range of psychiatric and neurological disorders in humans. Electrophysiological approaches to studying these causal pathways have been relatively underexploited. Effects of early life stress on neuronal electrophysiological properties offer a set of potential mechanisms for these susceptibilities, notably in the case of epilepsy. Thus, we review experimental evidence for altered cellular and circuit electrophysiology resulting from exposure to early life stress. Much of this work focuses on limbic long-term potentiation, but other studies address alterations in electrophysiological properties of ion channels, neurotransmitter systems, and the autonomic nervous system. We discuss mechanisms which may mediate these effects, including influences of early life stress on key components of brain synaptic transmission, particularly glutamate, GABA and 5-HT receptors, and influences on neuroplasticity (primarily neurogenesis and synaptic density) and on neuronal network activity. The existing literature, although small, provides strong evidence that early life stress induces enduring, often robust effects on a range of electrophysiological properties, suggesting further study of enduring effects of early life stress employing electrophysiological methods and concepts will be productive in illuminating disease pathophysiology.
越来越多的证据表明，生命早期接触压力会导致大脑功能长期改变，而大脑功能的改变又与人类一系列精神和神经疾病有关。在研究这些因果关系的途径时，电生理学方法的应用相对较少。早期生活压力对神经元电生理特性的影响为这些易感性提供了一系列潜在的机制，特别是在癫痫的情况下。因此，我们综述了实验证据，证明早期生活压力会导致细胞和回路电生理学发生改变。这项工作的很大一部分集中在边缘系统的长时程增强上，但其他研究还涉及离子通道、神经递质系统和自主神经系统电生理特性的改变。我们讨论了可能介导这些效应的机制，包括早期生活压力对大脑突触传递关键成分的影响，特别是谷氨酸、GABA 和 5-HT 受体，以及对神经可塑性（主要是神经发生和突触密度）和神经元网络活动的影响。尽管现有文献规模较小，但它提供了强有力的证据，证明早期生活压力会对一系列电生理特性产生持久的、往往是强烈的影响，这表明进一步采用电生理学方法和概念研究早期生活压力的持久影响将有助于阐明疾病的病理生理学。
