Role of environmental influences and mechanisms of amygdala excitability during development
Principal neuron excitability plays a critical role in encoding and retrieving emotional information in the basolateral amygdala (BLA).
Excitability of BLA principal neurons is regulated by intrinsic properties and circuit-level mechanisms that balance excitation and GABAergic inhibition to control emotional associations and memory encoding.
The BLA develops in multiple overlapping stages: early postnatal periods establish local circuits and sensory and subcortical connections for emergence of adaptive behaviors, while adolescence refines circuits through experience dependent plasticity and cortical integration for complex emotional functions.
Early shifts in amygdala excitability, such as prematurely elevated GABAergic tone, may impair synaptic refinement and trigger compensatory plasticity, leading to persistent changes in circuit functionality and aberrant emotional reactivity later in life.
https://www.cell.com/trends/neurosciences/fulltext/S0166-2236(26)00161-X
