Being exposed to severe stress and trauma in youth can disrupt the regulatory processes of the LHPA axis across the lifespans of animals and humans. For animals, introducing CRF at a young age can produce an impediment in later life that surrounds erased cognitive function, a reduced number of CA3 hippocampal neurons, and a decreased branching of hippocampal pyramidal neurons. While there is info on the LHPA system that is dysregulated in youth exposed to trauma, the cortisol regulation seems contradictory. No differences in cortisol response, blunted cortisol, or increased cortisol concentration have been reported in maltreated children and adults. The ACTH shows how these findings were both blunted and increased levels were reported in maltreated depressed children and adults.