Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2020 Nov 11;106:110171. doi: 10.1016/j.pnpbp.2020.110171

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

© 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.

PMC Copyright notice

Fig. 1 — Possible impacts from COVID-19 pandemic stressors on children and adolescence's life. Under physiological conditions, activation of the HPA axis occurs through production and release of CRH through the paraventricular nuclei of the hypothalamus. CRH stimulates the secretion of ACTH by the anterior portion of the pituitary gland (adenohypophysis). Therefore, ACTH reaches the peripheral circulation and is transported to the cortex of the adrenal glands, inducing the release of glucocorticoids (e.g. cortisol) into the bloodstream. In a negative feedback mechanism, cortisol, in turn, inhibits the secretion of CRH and ACTH. However, during early stages of life, where the child or adolescent are subjected to situations of long-lasting stress, this axis can have its activity dysregulated by inflammatory mediators synthesis and release (e.g. pro-inflammatory cytokines), neurotransmitters, hormones, among other molecules which can interfere with different physiological mechanisms. It includes distinct processes since intake regulation to cognition, for example. Moreover, the homeostasis disruption caused by a dysregulation of the HPA axis in response to stress induces neuroimmunoendocrine changes, which, if persistent, can induce poor health. All probable harmful effects on an individual's health triggered by this imbalance could be related to immune, endocrine, and nervous systems overload, and even a predisposition of these individuals to develop psychiatric disorders in adulthood. In the panel on the left we have gathered some of the possible short-term effects from exposure to stressors of COVID-19 pandemic at this stage of life (e.g. distress and hopelessness, irregular food intake, abuse and trauma, interpersonal and environmental restraint, sensorial deprivation and neglect) and on the right, possible long-term consequences (e.g. underdeveloped brain circuitry, obesity, substance abuse, lack of emotional processing, psychiatric disorders, suicidal thoughts). HPA: hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal; CRH: corticotrophin-releasing hormone; ACTH: adrenocorticotropic hormone.