What are the implications of these laboratory studies for women experiencing pregnancy and motherhood today? Many adult brain disorders, including anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, autism, and most likely IBS, are now considered neurodevelopmental disorders, meaning that the basic brain changes start very early in life, many of them already in utero. As we have learned, stress is a major factor that influences these neurodevelopment changes, and there are at least two major pathways by which early adversity can affect the brain-gut axis: one is by epigenetic modification of the stress
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