Early life stress, lower urinary tract dysfunction, and respiratory disease: a proposed shared-mechanism framework

Abstract

Early life stress (ELS) has been associated with persistent dysfunction across multiple physiological systems in humans, and maternal separation produces such dysfunction in rodent models. The respiratory and urinary tracts appear functionally distinct, yet both may be influenced by candidate overlapping neuro-endocrine, immune, and epigenetic consequences of ELS — a convergence that has received little attention because respiratory medicine, urology, and stress physiology have largely studied these effects in isolation. Our starting point is an experimental observation: in maternal separation rats, bladder-directed low-intensity extracorporeal shock wave therapy (Li-ESWT) reduced the elevated bladder weight and also improved anxiety-like behavior, showing that an intervention directed toward the bladder — regional rather than strictly organ-restricted — can be followed by change in a central behavioral endpoint, although the route, direction, and causality were not established. If peripheral-to-central communication of this kind is general, organs other than the bladder that may share elements of ELS-related programming could be similarly accessible. The airway is a plausible candidate: in mouse studies of maternal separation, ELS suppresses regulatory T-cell development and biases airway immunity toward Th2 responses, while separate rat studies report bladder overactivity, altered voiding, and anxiety-like behavior. The two have not been measured in the same animals. We review the candidate shared substrates — hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis dysregulation, chronic low-grade inflammation (e.g. IL-6, TNF), autonomic/vagal imbalance, microbiome-mediated immune programming along the gut–lung and gut–bladder axes, and epigenetic reprogramming — distinguishing throughout what has been shown in humans from what rests on rodent models. We propose a “psycho-neuro-immune-urinary-respiratory nexus” as a testable framework rather than an established entity, and outline the experimental models, biomarkers, and integrated therapeutic strategies needed to test it.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Frontiers in Physiology, 2026 · DOI ↗