Stress and the brain: how experiences and exposures across the life span shape health, development, and learning in adolescence
Recognizing the utility of a life course perspective, this special issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health examines the impact of experience in shaping brain and behavior from the prenatal period through adolescence. This issue is based on a conference, “Stress and the Brain: Implications for Health, Development and Learning,” held at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in April 2011. It was a collaboration of the Schools of Education and Public Health and was sponsored by the Carol and Eugene Ludwig Fund. The conference brought together a multidisciplinary group of experts to consider the role of stress, adversity, and experience broadly defined, during the prenatal, childhood, and adolescent periods. Together, the articles in this issue illustrate the diversity of research methods being applied in this area, which span genomics, developmental psychobiology, neuroimaging, and intervention research.
