Idaho Statesman Logo

Stress warps brains and behavior, researchers say | Idaho Statesman

×
  • E-edition
  • Home
    • Customer Service
    • Mobile & Apps
    • Archives
    • Buy Photos and Pages
    • Contact Us
    • Newsletters
    • Newspaper in Education
    • Subscribe
    • Subscriber Services

    • News
    • Boise
    • West Ada
    • Canyon County
    • Crime
    • State News
    • Nation/World News
    • Databases
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Idahoans in the Military
    • Weather
    • Traffic
    • Helping Works
    • In the Classroom
    • Our Community
    • Sports
    • Boise State Football
    • Boise State Basketball
    • Idaho Vandals
    • High Schools
    • Bronco Beat
    • Chadd Cripe
    • Varsity Extra Blog
    • NFL
    • NBA
    • NHL
    • MLB
    • Golf
    • Idaho Politics
    • Elections
    • Government and Business
    • Capitol & State
    • Letters from the West
    • National Politics
    • Business
    • Business Insider
    • Business Columns & Blogs
    • Personal Finance
    • Legal Notices
    • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Bill Manny
    • Editorial Cartoons
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Guest Opinion
    • Submit a Letter or Opinion
    • Entertainment
    • Events Calendar
    • Restaurant Reviews
    • Arts and Culture
    • Festivals
    • Movie Reviews
    • Movie Showtimes
    • Music
    • Television
    • Books
    • Comics
    • Puzzles & Games
    • Horoscopes
    • Puzzles
    • Words & Deeds
    • ArtsBeat
    • Outdoors
    • Playing Outdoors Blog
    • Biking
    • Camping
    • Fishing
    • Hiking and Trails
    • Hunting
    • Winter Recreation
    • Living
    • Food & Drink
    • Health & Fitness
    • Home & Garden
    • Treasure
    • Pets
    • Religion
    • Travel
    • Best of Treasure Valley
    • Heart of the Treasure Valley
    • Margaret Lauterbach
    • Tim Woodward
    • Carolyn Hax
  • Obituaries

  • Contests
  • Advertise
  • Classifieds
  • Jobs
  • Cars
  • Homes
  • Place An Ad

  • About Us
  • Mobile & Apps

News

Stress warps brains and behavior, researchers say

Robert S. Boyd - McClatchy Newspapers

    ORDER REPRINT →

November 19, 2008 12:46 PM

WASHINGTON — Scientists have discovered how stress — in the form of emotional, mental or physical tension — physically reshapes the brain and causes long-lasting harm to humans and animals.

"Stress causes neurons (brain cells) to shrink or grow," said Bruce McEwen, a neuroscientist at Rockefeller University in New York. "The wear and tear on the body from lots of stress changes the nervous system.''

He said that stress is "particularly worrying in the developing brain, which appears to be programmed by early stressful experience."

Stress in early life, even in the womb, can later lead to undesirable changes in behavior and the ability to learn and remember. Other consequences may be substance abuse and psychiatric disorders, researchers said at a conference of neuroscientists in Washington this week.

Sign Up and Save

Get six months of free digital access to The Idaho Statesman

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

#ReadLocal

"Pre-natal stress can change the brain forever," said Tallie Baram, a neurologist at the University of California, Irvine. "Stress changes how genes are expressed throughout life."

Even short-term stress can be harmful, Baram said. She described her work with laboratory mice, which were immobilized for five hours and subjected to loud rock music. The ordeal reduced the number of delicate fibers that carry signals between neurons, an MRI brain scan of the stressed-out mice showed.

The experiment offered "insights into why some people are forgetful or have difficulty retaining information during stressful situations," Baram said. She said that neuroscientists hope they'll be able to "design drugs to prevent the damage due to stress."

Long-lasting, chronic stress also physically affects the brain, according to Fred Helmstetter, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. After laboratory rats were tightly restrained for six hours daily for 21 days, without food or water, the animals' hippocampus — a brain region involved in learning and memory — shrank by 3 percent.

Another researcher, Lauren Jones of the University of Washington in Seattle, found that rats subjected to 60 minutes of restraint and electric tail shocks lost their ability to decide which path in a maze to take to receive a reward.

"If uncontrollable stress disrupts rats' abilities to adjust their behavior," she said, "how influenced by stress are people's frequent and complex daily decisions?"

Nim Tottenham, a neuroscientist at the Weill Cornell Medical School in New York, studied children adopted from orphanages abroad who suffered from anxiety and had difficulty controlling their emotions.

Brain scans showed that these children's stressful upbringing increased activity in the amygdala, a region involved in emotion. "Adverse rearing environments can produce long-lasting changes in the ability to regulate emotion," Tottenham said.

Simona Spinelli, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., worked with monkeys who were taken from their mothers the day after they were born, an emotionally stressful experience. Brain scans taken two years later showed that changes in the monkeys' brain regions that handle emotions were enlarged, evidence that stress can change the structure of the brain.

"Exposure to a stressful early-life environment has long-term consequences on brain development," Spinelli said. It's "a structural indicator for an increased risk of developing stress-related neuropsychiatric disorders in humans."

"Stress begins in the brain — it's in our heads, McEwen said.

ON THE WEB

Information on stress from the National Institutes of Health

MORE FROM MCCLATCHY

Scientists rethinking what makes us get old

Scientists scratch heads over why we itch

Cells die to keep you alive

In cancer war, viruses can be good guys

  Comments  

Videos

See four familiar retailers filing for bankruptcy

Idaho Youth Ranch sees an uptick in donations due to popular Netflix show

View More Video

Trending Stories

Stick this in your pipe and smoke it, Utah! Idaho is one of least sinful U.S. states

February 20, 2019 04:04 PM

Boise franchisees say franchiser double-crossed them. What Idaho’s Supreme Court ruled

February 20, 2019 02:16 PM

Cold case breakthrough: Man charged with murder in 1995 death of Idaho teen

February 20, 2019 05:09 PM

Amazon’s Nampa center will increase traffic, so city wants it to pay for road upgrades

February 20, 2019 12:03 AM

Former Boise State football stars among NFL’s most sought-after free agents

February 20, 2019 02:47 PM

Read Next

Don’t build a Taj Mahal library, Boise council members told at town hall

Boise & Garden City

Don’t build a Taj Mahal library, Boise council members told at town hall

By John Sowell

    ORDER REPRINT →

February 21, 2019 09:53 PM

The Boise City Council met in an informal meeting at the Library! at Bown Crossing to hear residents’ concerns and suggestions. The design of the proposed library by famed architect Moshe Safdie and its cost concerned many.

KEEP READING

Sign Up and Save

#ReadLocal

Get six months of free digital access to The Idaho Statesman

SUBSCRIBE WITH GOOGLE

MORE NEWS

The Latest: Lawyer call Smollett man of character, integrity

Entertainment

The Latest: Lawyer call Smollett man of character, integrity

February 21, 2019 09:47 PM
Federal prosecutors broke law in Jeffrey Epstein case, judge rules

National

Federal prosecutors broke law in Jeffrey Epstein case, judge rules

February 21, 2019 12:51 PM
Risch talks ‘largest threat’ to America, Columbia River Treaty and national media

State Politics

Risch talks ‘largest threat’ to America, Columbia River Treaty and national media

February 21, 2019 05:35 PM
Mattis for president? Grass-roots campaign takes root on Richland official’s lawn

Northwest

Mattis for president? Grass-roots campaign takes root on Richland official’s lawn

February 21, 2019 08:14 PM
Shove it, Salt Lake. Not even close, Helena. Boise ranked second-best U.S. capital to live in.

Local

Shove it, Salt Lake. Not even close, Helena. Boise ranked second-best U.S. capital to live in.

February 21, 2019 08:08 PM
The Latest: New election ordered in undecided US House race

Nation & World

The Latest: New election ordered in undecided US House race

February 21, 2019 07:52 PM
Take Us With You

Real-time updates and all local stories you want right in the palm of your hand.

Icon for mobile apps

Idaho Statesman App

View Newsletters

Subscriptions
  • Start a Subscription
  • Customer Service
  • eEdition
  • Vacation Hold
  • Pay Your Bill
  • Rewards
Learn More
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletters
  • News in Education
  • Archives
Advertising
  • Information
  • Place a Classified
  • Local Deals
  • Place an Obituary
  • Today's Circulars
Copyright
Privacy Policy
Terms of Service


Back to Story