Early life social experience and adulthood impulsivity – Implications of central serotonergic system during development

Abstract

Developmental psychology highlights that early life experience is important in shaping later on mental manifestations, and it may apply to social development too. Impulsivity is a specific form of mental manifestation to reflect an impairment of individuals’ ability to control their response. Increasing evidence reveals that disturbance of social development from early life, such as isolation rearing since weaning, could affect individuals’ behavioral impulsivity. Its underlying mechanism remains unsolved, however manipulation of central 5-HT system provide effective therapeutic utility in both human and animal studies. We hypothesize that the pathophysiology of isolation rearing shares with the underlying mechanism of impulsivity in which a time-dependent change of central 5-HT is involved. The hypothesis can be tested by experiments to work out (i) early life social development serves as a factor in determining the function of central 5-HT in adulthood, and (ii) long term manipulation of central 5-HT can reverse the effects of isolation rearing on behavioral impulsivity and 5-HT related neurochemical profiles.