While conducting research on Adrenal Fatigue, we ran across lots of studies documenting the effects of stress on the body.
There were so many new studies that we had a hard time trying to choose one to blog on.
So rather than try to narrow our options, we thought that we would share some of the more interesting results below:
- Chronic stress reduces the number of neurons in the dentate gyrus (the part of the brain associated with the formation of new memories), and also contributes to cognitive problems.
- In the hippocampus (which play a role in long-term memory and spatial navigation), chronic stress causes neurons to undergo remodeling of dendrites. Dendrites act as part of the brain’s communication network.
- Stress-induced remodeling of the hippocampus can be at least partially reversible with the removal of the stress.
- An insufficient amount of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), is thought to be at least partially responsible for remodeling the brain under stress. Experiments have found that the brains of mice with an inadequate amount of this protein look similar to those of normal mice that have been under stress for long periods. BDNF enhances the adaptability of neurons in the hippocampus.
- Chronic stress effects the functioning and mental flexibility of the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain involved in working memory and decision making. The prefrontal cortex is also involved in overcoming distorted learning (think trauma and phobias).
- Chronic stress is thought to be one of the most common causes of adrenal fatigue.
There were lots of other recent findings and new articles are being published every day.
To learn more about the effects of chronic stress, check out NICABM’s Mind/Body courses.
In the meantime, I welcome your thoughts on the neurobiological effects of stress. Can information from new studies help you become more effective in treating patients with chronic stress?
Please share your thoughts and opinions below.
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Natural medicine works. Trust me . Your worst enemy in medicine is the pharmaceutical industry. They are the ones putting out all this propoganda about Alternative Medicine. They want you to pay their outrageous prices for their prescription drugs only to get sicker and require more drugs for the side effects their drugs cause. Alternative medicine is a walk in the park compared to the garbage these REAL drug pushers are trying to scare us into taking. Check out the commercials on T.V. It seems like every other commercial is pushing some new drug on us. My mother was literally medicated to death following doctor’s orders. She followed them right to the cemetary.
I have heard Dr. Wilson speak, read his book, and given copies to several clients as a prelude to treatment. Be aware however, the adrenal fatigue is not a recognized disorder either psychiatrically, psychologically, or by endocrinologists. It is not accepted as a subclass of Addison’s. So the burden of proof remains on Dr. Wilson and others to get this disorder acknowledged—such as being attempted by those working with “sensory processing” disorders.
All of the research, minus the finding in the last bulleted item, came from Dr. Bruce S. McEwen’s laboratory at the Rockefeller University.
Would it be possible to cite the peer-reviewed sources of this information? I tend to lose interest if I have to dig for it myself…
I really appreciate your vim and vigor. Out of one’s frustration comes great passion.
This stuff is still a bit new to me and very reinforcing of what I have and am still learning from the research literature. These tele-seminars have been very helpful in consolidating my understanding of the brain and its recursive interactions with the body, mind experience.
I feel maybe you have just crested the wave before some of us. I find anything tagged “neuro” to be an invitation to learn through a lens of understanding what I personally get really excited about.
It is in translating this information in a manner that is consumable and user friendly to the general public I find fascinating. Where a neurological understanding of life becomes embedded in our culture and our understanding of each other.
I’m glad to see confirmed what I have observed in my clients for years — the effects of chronic stress on memory and on one’s capacity to think and problem-solve. Over and over, people who are chronically stressed tell me that they can no longer remember things, that they can’t focus, that they are not thinking as clearly as they used to (i.e., before being under such stress). I have always suspected stress as the culprit.
I have also notice the dramatic increase over the last five years in the number of clients’ reports of physical problems– chronic pain, migraine headaches, muscle spasms, immune deficiency. Several clients with such complaints have been reluctant to correlate them with chronic stress, instead attributing them solely to some suspected, often serious, underlying physical illness or condition. “Real” pain or illness validates their suffering and, I suspect, allows them to step out of their stress-filled lives, at least temporarily. If only our society widely recognized the toxicity of stress….how many problems that could address!
In my area of New Mexico, counselors do not routinely receive effective training in the Biological Bases of Behavior. Thus, many negative biases regarding “character faults” continue to impact care and evaluation of client behavior that is biologically based.
Because my husband and I completed our education in New England, and my connections with neuropsychology have been in Texas since the 1970s, the material in these seminars is not new to me. However, I am delighted to have nuances brightened, and further reading provided.
This past winter there was a NICABM blog entry that noted the frequency of ethanol (addictive process) as 0.03 Hz. Since then I have found an array of research that relates the more full harmonic of 300.0 Hz (tone pitch, autism), 30.0 Hz (retinal function in aging), 3.0 Hz (photo-convulsive), 0.3 Hz (dementia, shingles), and 0.003 Hz (human vagal response) to complex mind-body disorders in every-day therapeutic practice. I am excited that these physical parameters relate so directly to sensory awareness and cognitive function.
The harmonic around 0.03 Hz is also not the only important one. For example, 0.1 Hz relates to proprioception and visual function after injury (e.g., TBI)–while 10.0 Hz relates to serotonin metabolism.
In today’s world, entrainment frequencies such as these can be effectively delivered to a client using a simple digital brainwave generator. GNaural is a free brainwave generator available for download, and NeuroProgrammerII allows programming of discrete frequencies as desired.
If mindfulness practice can eventually substitute for machines, as clients learn to regulate the body mind at ever-deepening levels of non-stress–well, I am glad to be part of that learning curve as well.