Into adulthood - prenatal glucocorticoids increase HPA axis activity in a wild primate

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis has a dual role in the biology of developmental plasticity in mammals including humans — it provides offspring with cues to maternal physiological states, and it is the target of offspring developmental plasticity. To assess timing effects, we quantified maternal HPA axis activity as a source of early adversity during three developmental phases, and assessed its effect on offspring HPA axis activity in wild infant, juvenile, and adult macaques. Prenatal maternal glucocorticoid levels experienced early in gestation but not during lactation had similar enhancing effects on offspring HPA axis activity in all offspring age classes. Together with previous results, this small study suggests that offspring are sensitive to the fundamental programming of this and other physiological systems especially very early during development with effects on correlates of Darwinian fitness.