Early caregiving and human biobehavioral development: a comparative physiology approach

•Reviews the research examining early caregiving and subsequent development.•Programming and the malleability of stress-responding systems are emphasized.•Our comparative physiology model integrates research in neuroscience and ecology.•We present a model of phenotypic plasticity in human stress responding.

A large and growing body of evidence demonstrates associations between quality of the early caregiving environment and risk for stress-related illness across the lifespan. The recent research examining associations between early caregiving environments and subsequent development is reviewed, with particular attention to early programming and subsequent malleability of systems underlying stress responsivity. A developmental comparative physiology model is suggested; one in which postnatal programming and phenotypic plasticity act in concert as mechanisms underlying the persisting effects of early care environments for biobehavioral outcomes.

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