Fig. 1.

Different maternal environmental stressors lead to common neuropsychiatric risk profiles in offspring. Epidemiological and animal model studies associate maternal stress, infection, and altered nutrition with increased risk for an overlapping range of neuropsychiatric outcomes in offspring, including cognitive impairment, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and autism spectrum disorders. Evidence suggests that these stressors act via converging pathophysiological pathways characterized by systemic allostatic overload across regulatory systems including the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, metabolic signaling, and inflammatory pathways. The placenta acts as an integrator and propagator of allostatic overload, not only communicating the maternal environment to the fetus but also altering its own structural and functional capacity in response. The developing fetus, patterned in an environment of dysregulation, is programmed towards increased neuropsychiatric risk. Created with BioRender.com.