Department of Preventive Medicine, The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America.
Health Management, Atlantic Veterinary College, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada.
PLoS One. 2022 Aug 30;17(8):e0273838. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0273838. eCollection 2022.
Principles of allostasis and allostatic load have been widely applied in human research to assess the impacts of chronic stress on physiological dysregulation. Over the last few decades, researchers have also applied these concepts to non-human animals. However, there is a lack of uniformity in how the concept of allostasis is described and assessed in animals. The objectives of this review were to: 1) describe the extent to which the concepts of allostasis and allostatic load are applied theoretically to animals, with a focus on which taxa and species are represented; 2) identify when direct assessments of allostasis or allostatic load are made, which species and contexts are represented, what biomarkers are used, and if an allostatic load index was constructed; and 3) detect gaps in the literature and identify areas for future research. A search was conducted using CABI, PubMed, Agricola, and BIOSIS databases, in addition to a complementary hand-search of 14 peer-reviewed journals. Search results were screened, and articles that included non-human animals, as well as the terms "allostasis" or "allostatic" in the full text, were included. A total of 572 articles met the inclusion criteria (108 reviews and 464 peer-reviewed original research). Species were represented across all taxa. A subset of 63 publications made direct assessments of allostatic load. Glucocorticoids were the most commonly used biomarker, and were the only biomarker measured in 25 publications. Only six of 63 publications (9.5%) constructed an allostatic load index, which is the preferred methodology in human research. Although concepts of allostasis and allostatic load are being applied broadly across animal species, most publications use single biomarkers that are more likely indicative of short-term rather than chronic stress. Researchers are encouraged to adopt methodologies used in human research, including the construction of species-specific allostatic load indexes.
适应和适应负荷的原则已被广泛应用于人类研究中，以评估慢性应激对生理失调的影响。在过去的几十年中，研究人员也将这些概念应用于非人类动物。然而，在动物中描述和评估适应的概念缺乏一致性。本综述的目的是：1）描述适应和适应负荷概念在理论上应用于动物的程度，重点是哪些分类群和物种得到了代表；2）确定何时直接评估适应或适应负荷，代表哪些物种和背景，使用哪些生物标志物，以及是否构建了适应负荷指数；3）发现文献中的差距，并确定未来研究的方向。使用 CABI、PubMed、Agricola 和 BIOSIS 数据库进行了搜索，此外还对手头的 14 种同行评议期刊进行了补充手工搜索。对搜索结果进行了筛选，只包括包含非人类动物以及全文中包含“适应”或“适应”一词的文章。共有 572 篇文章符合纳入标准（108 篇综述和 464 篇同行评议的原始研究）。物种分布在所有分类群中。有 63 篇出版物中有一部分直接评估了适应负荷。糖皮质激素是最常用的生物标志物，有 25 篇出版物仅测量了这一种生物标志物。在 63 篇出版物中，只有 6 篇（9.5%）构建了适应负荷指数，这是人类研究中首选的方法。尽管适应和适应负荷的概念已广泛应用于动物物种，但大多数出版物使用的单一生物标志物更可能表明短期而不是慢性应激。鼓励研究人员采用人类研究中使用的方法，包括构建特定于物种的适应负荷指数。
