The Positive Impact of Stress on the Brain

By Andrew Small

On October 24 2008, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) convened their fourth Abelson Advancing Science Seminar in Washington, D.C. The day-long event featured 10 prominent neurobiologists, psychologists, and geneticists whose work investigates the impact of stress on the brain and demonstrates the significance of stress as a risk factor for disease and a major cause of illness and death around the world.

New research into the biology of stress suggests ways of developing new treatments for stress-related disorders, uncovering indications that not all stress is unhealthy. It is even likely that the short-term effects of a stressful experience, including a quick release of energy and hormones, as well as an increased rapidity of thought processes, have an evolutionary benefit. The seminar's keynote speaker, Dr. Robert Sapolsky, who has conducted decades-long field studies of baboon troops in Kenya, notes from his observations that while lower-ranking baboons who endure more prolonged experiences of stress as a result of their social position do develop associated physical disorders, the short-term reactions to stress "probably evolved as a way to allow us to evade and outsmart our ancient predators."

Dr. Firdaus Dhabhar of Stanford University's Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, is among many researchers who believe that it is possible to make use of the stress response to enhance immunity during vaccination and surgery. He and his colleagues have shown that hormones produced during the stress of knee surgery can strengthen the immune response and promote recovery even up to a year later.

In a similar vein, many of the speakers focused on the neurochemical changes induced by stress. Martha J. Farah, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that there is a link between the stress of childhood poverty and diminished functioning in areas of the brain necessary for language, memory, and self-control. Dr. Darlene Francis of the University of California dubs the concert of hormonal responses in the hypothalamic, pituitary, and adrenal glands the "stress axis," and claims that some studies show its operation to be influenced by a nurturing environment, suggesting that "differences in the stress-axis may then render populations more vulnerable – or resilient – to the slings and arrows of life."

Other researchers continue to look for ways to harness the brain's response to treat a variety of disorders. Enriching our understanding of the complex chemical and hormonal reactions to stressful situations may someday even lead to the development of new treatments for diseases like Huntington's and Alzheimer's.

To read the AAAS news release covering the seminar, visit: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2008/1105abelson_stress.shtml.

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