Can we understand how developmental stress enhances performance under future threat with the Yerkes-Dodson law?

Adult rats exposed to chronic stress during adolescence showed enhanced foraging performance under later high-threat conditions compared to unstressed controls, increasing performance by 43%. In contrast, no impairment was observed under low-threat conditions, despite adolescent-stressed rats initiating foraging 106% later while consuming a similar amount of food as controls. Framing these outcomes with the Yerkes-Dodson law, the authors propose that developmental stress shifts the curvilinear arousal–performance relationship, increasing the optimal arousal range and conferring a performance advantage under elevated threat. This perspective aligns with adaptive hypotheses about early stress while explaining the context-dependent nature of performance effects.

Lauren E Chaby, Michael J Sheriff, Amy M Hirrlinger, Victoria A Braithwaite