Design, rationale and feasibility of a multidimensional experimental protocol to study early life stress.

There is a rapidly accumulating body of evidence regarding the influential role of early life stress (ELS) upon medical and psychiatric conditions. While self-report instruments, with their intrinsic limitations of recall, remain the primary means of detecting ELS in humans, biological measures are generally limited to a single biological system. This paper describes the design, rationale and feasibility of a study to simultaneously measure neuroendocrine, immune and autonomic nervous system (ANS) responses to psychological and physiological stressors in relation to ELS.

Early life programming of pain: focus on neuroimmune to endocrine communication.

Chronic pain constitutes a challenge for the scientific community and a significant economic and social cost for modern societies. Given the failure of current drugs to effectively treat chronic pain, which are based on suppressing aberrant neuronal excitability, we propose in this review an integrated approach that views pain not solely originating from neuronal activation but also the result of a complex interaction between the nervous, immune, and endocrine systems. Pain assessment must also extend beyond measures of behavioural responses to noxious stimuli to a more developmentally informed assessment given the significant plasticity of the nociceptive system during the neonatal period.

Altered psychophysiological reactivity as a prognostic indicator of early childhood stress in chronic pain.

There is considerable evidence that early life stress (ELS) can have a lasting impact upon adult physiology. Various childhood (and even prenatal) stressors such as parental separation, neglect, and trauma, can leave an enduring impact upon immune, autonomic and endocrine systems. These changes are increasingly understood to represent vulnerabilities to developing later life medical (and psychological) morbidity.