From the University of California Berkeley, February 2014:
Long-term stress causes changes in the brain’s white and grey matter which could help explain the link to emotional disorders and anxiety later in life.
People who have post-traumatic stress disorder, for example, have higher levels of grey matter in comparison to white matter.
It is thought that a change in the balance between the white and grey matter may disrupt the delicate timing involved in how parts of the brain communicate with each other.
This disruption may well be one of the biological underpinnings of serious mental disorders.
One of the study’s authors, Daniela Kaufer of UC Berkeley, said:
“We studied only one part of the brain, the hippocampus, but our findings could provide insight into how white matter is changing in conditions such as schizophrenia, autism, depression, suicide, ADHD and PTSD.”
The results come from the study of rats and cultured rat brain cells.
The researchers found that chronic stress made stem cells turn into oligodendrocytes, which produce the myelin or grey matter of the brain.
At the same time, chronic stress reduced the number of stem cells that became neurons.
Kaufer explained how this shift in the balance between grey and white matter might affect connectivity in the brain:
“You can imagine that if your amygdala and hippocampus are better connected, that could mean that your fear responses are much quicker, which is something you see in stress survivors.
On the other hand, if your connections are not so good to the prefrontal cortex, your ability to shut down responses is impaired.
So, when you are in a stressful situation, the inhibitory pathways from the prefrontal cortex telling you not to get stressed don’t work as well as the amygdala shouting to the hippocampus, ‘This is terrible!’ You have a much bigger response than you should.”
[Apologies, the Algorithm will not let me post the link. Please search for "how-long-term-stress-causes-serious-mental-disorders"]
Original paper published in Molecular Psychiatry, 11 Feb 2014:
[Apologies, the Algorithm will not let me post the link - please search.]
There is a long-known stress>abdominal fat gain correlate in research dating back to 1997:
[Apologies, the Algorithm will not let me post the link - please search.]
- - - - -
Essentially, when we're stressed we're more likely to get fat not just by comfort eating but through the action of cortisol, a stress hormone.
The UCB researchers propose that stress and trauma induces the brain to store more fat which is great medium for brain signals to zap around in. More and faster signals are not necessarily a good thing: in the case of PTSD and other anxiety disorders the researchers say that brain signals move too quickly and excessively in response to stimuli. Simple.
This could point the way to a whole new raft of treatments to control PTSD by controlling fat metabolism and storage. A PTSD diet plan and, of course, the pharmacos would make $billions if they could produce a pill to do the job of fat reduction!
Original paper published in Molecular Psychiatry, 11 Feb 2014:
[Apologies, the Algorithm will not let me post the link - please search.]
There is a long-known stress>abdominal fat gain correlate in research dating back to 1997:
[Apologies, the Algorithm will not let me post the link - please search.]
- - - - -
Essentially, when we're stressed we're more likely to get fat not just by comfort eating but through the action of cortisol, a stress hormone.
The UCB researchers propose that stress and trauma induces the brain to store more fat which is great medium for brain signals to zap around in. More and faster signals are not necessarily a good thing: in the case of PTSD and other anxiety disorders the researchers say that brain signals move too quickly and excessively in response to stimuli. Simple.
This could point the way to a whole new raft of treatments to control PTSD by controlling fat metabolism and storage. A PTSD diet plan and, of course, the pharmacos would make $billions if they could produce a pill to do the job of fat reduction!
Last edited: