Psycological and physiological responses to stress: a review based on results from PET and MRI studies (original) (raw)
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Weiyang Xiong Stress and the Brain How does stress affect our brain? We all experience stress in our daily lives. When we encounter stressors, our brain's chemical elements will change, in turn affecting the brain's stress response systems. When stress places one's body in a precarious state in which one cannot function properly, one would become extremely vulnerable to disease and illness (Fricchione, 30). The harmful effects of stress could be mitigated if one were to have sufficient external support from family and friends or internal coping mechanisms generated through meditation, healthy diet and regular exercises. In the face of distressing psychological and social stressors, one must expend tremendous energy through one's brain and body to stabilize one's physiologies. Failure to quickly adapt and cope with stressors would result in the impairment of one's brain regions including the hippocampus and the amygdala, leading to severe diseases such as Type II diabetes, depression and PTSD. In order to gain a better understanding of the effects of stressors on different brain regions, one needs to delve deeper into the functions of various brain areas and different roles they play in stress. One's brain plays an active role in maintaining physiological stability "in the face of changing circumstances" in a process called allostasis, the active process of responding to challenges to, and adaptive changes by, an individual (McEwen, 2). The brain adjusts one's stress response systems to accommodate to the increasing demand imposed upon by stress. When the stress becomes too overwhelming or enduring, the brain would find it extremely difficult to maintain energy balance, placing one's health and wellness in jeopardy. Therefore, in the face of severe stressors, the brain's stress response systems notify one's body organs of perceived challenges and threats so the body would have time to react. This system works well under short or acute stress; under chronic stress, however, the brain's depletion in resources would prevent it from meeting the energy demand necessary to adjust the stress 1
Acta Neuropathologica, 2014
broad definition of pathology, we here review the "neuropathology of stress" and focus on structural consequences of stress exposure for different regions of the rodent, primate and human brain. we discuss cytoarchitectural, neuropathological and structural plasticity measures as well as more recent neuroimaging techniques that allow direct monitoring of the spatiotemporal effects of stress and the role of different cNS structures in the regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in human brain. we focus on the hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, nucleus accumbens, prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex, key brain regions that not only modulate emotions and cognition but also the response to stress itself, and discuss disorders like Abstract environmental challenges are part of daily life for any individual. In fact, stress appears to be increasingly present in our modern, and demanding, industrialized society. virtually every aspect of our body and brain can be influenced by stress and although its effects are partly mediated by powerful corticosteroid hormones that target the nervous system, relatively little is known about when, and how, the effects of stress shift from being beneficial and protective to becoming deleterious. Decades of stress research have provided valuable insights into whether stress can directly induce dysfunction and/or pathological alterations, which elements of stress exposure are responsible, and which structural substrates are involved. Using a P. J. lucassen
A Comprehensive Overview on Stress Neurobiology: Basic Concepts and Clinical Implications
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
Stress is recognized as an important issue in basic and clinical neuroscience research, based upon the founding historical studies by Walter Canon and Hans Selye in the past century, when the concept of stress emerged in a biological and adaptive perspective. A lot of research after that period has expanded the knowledge in the stress field. Since then, it was discovered that the response to stressful stimuli is elaborated and triggered by the, now known, stress system, which integrates a wide diversity of brain structures that, collectively, are able to detect events and interpret them as real or potential threats. However, different types of stressors engage different brain networks, requiring a fine-tuned functional neuroanatomical processing. This integration of information from the stressor itself may result in a rapid activation of the Sympathetic-Adreno-Medullar (SAM) axis and the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis, the two major components involved in the stress response. The complexity of the stress response is not restricted to neuroanatomy or to SAM and HPA axes mediators, but also diverge according to timing and duration of stressor exposure, as well as its short-and/or long-term consequences. The identification of neuronal circuits of stress, as well as their interaction with mediator molecules over time is critical, not only for understanding the physiological stress responses, but also to understand their implications on mental health.
What stress does to your brain: a review of neuroimaging studies
Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie, 2009
Recent neuroimaging studies aimed at investigating effects of psychological stress on the neural activity have used a range of experimental paradigms to elicit an acute stress response. The goal of this review is to, first, summarize results from these studies from a perspective of task design and, second, assess the appropriateness of the different stress tasks used. We completed a PubMed search on recent articles that have examined the effects of psychological stress on neural processes in a neuroimaging environment. Selected articles were arranged according to the stress task used in the following categories: script-driven stress stimuli, Stroop colour-word interference task, speech in front of an audience, serial subtraction, and Montreal Imaging Stress Task (MIST). Only studies using serial subtraction or the MIST were able to induce a significant cortisol stress response in their participants. Most consistent findings include decreased activity in orbitofrontal regions in resp...
New Frontiers in Stress Research Modulation of Brain Function
1998
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Fortnighly review. Stress, the brain, and mental illness
BMJ Clinical Research
Not for the first time, medicine is beginning to accept what folklore has been saying for some time-in this case, that stress causes illness. Causation is most comfortably accepted in medicine when it relates to definable physical events: bacteria cause infection, radiation can cause cancer; exposure to toxic chemicals can cause blood abnormalities, and so on, though we know that even these relations are not simple. How can stress cause anything? Method In a cross disciplinary and wide ranging paper such as this, it seems useful to give most references to books or reviews that summarise current evidence or opinion. However, the factual statements are based on the primary literature, which I accessed in the usual way: from personal collections of reprints, from databases (such as BIDS and Medline, using keywords such as "stress" or "depression" coupled with other keywords such as "adrenal steroids," "corticoids," "serotonin," etc), from reviews (some cited in this paper), from scanning key journals, and from contact with colleagues.
Neurophysiology of stress: From historical to modern approach
Medicinska istrazivanja
Stress is present in our everyday lives and it is considered to be the driving force of evolution. Anxiety, chronic worries and panic attacks are the most common consequences of long-term and exhausting stress. The most significant fundamental contribution that is crucial for the development of the modern concept of stress was made by Claude Bernard who proposed the theory that the body was constantly maintaining a stable and well-balanced internal environment or "milieu interieur". Maintaining the internal environment constant was defined as homeostasis by Cannon who proposed two maintenance mechanisms - through negative feedback from the autonomic nervous system and through sensory organs. Hans Selye proposed stress as non-specific strain on the body, caused by an altered body function which is followed by the release of stress hormones. He named this process the general adaptation syndrome which had three stages: alarm reaction, initial phase exhibiting "fight or f...