Neurobiology of stress Flashcards
What are the 2 different types of stress?
Eustress - positive stress that is beneficial and motivating
Distress - Negative stress, damaging and harmful that is not resolved by coping or (rapid) adaptation
Type of stressor less important than
How it is experienced
How long it goes on
Is it experienced psychologically and/or physically
How are the cause and the response distinguished?
Cause - stressor
Response - Stress response
What are different types of stressors?
Physical stressors
Psychological stress
What are physical stressors?
Processed in brainstem and hypothalamus: reflexive
Insults or injuries that produce direct physiological effects e.g. damage of body tissue and or bodily threat
What is psychological stress?
Involves PFC, amygdala, hippocampus
Stimuli that are perceived as excessively demanding or threatening, often involving antiipation
What are the 3 phases of stress response? (Selye’s syndrome)
Alarm: threat identified, body responds with state of alarm, fight or flight
Adaptation: Body engages defensive countermeasures
Exhaustion: Body runs out of defenses and resources are depleted
What was the proposition of allostasis?
How complex systems adapt (e.g. via HPA axis) to changing environments by changing set-points
Allostatic load refers to cumulative exposure to stressors and cost to the body
disagreement on whether allostasis is different from homeostasis
What is acute stress?
Brief response
to a novel but short-lived situation, experienced by the body as a danger
Conscious perception of threat is not always involved
Active stress response (fight or flight) is healthy and adaptive and necessary for survival
Examples of acute stress?
Noise
Short term fire danger
Brief physiological challenge e.g. cold or hunger
Brief illness
What is chronic stress?
Repeated ir continued exposure to threatening or dangerous situations, esp those that can’t be controlled
More likely to involve appraisal and conscious perception than acute stress
What are examples of chronic stress?
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What are the 5 key elements of the human stress response?
Biochemical
Physiological
Behavioural
Cognitive
Emotional
What are the 2 stress responses?
The autonominc nervous system: sympathomedullary pathway
The HPA axis: The pituitary- adrenal system
What is the sympathomedullary pathway in the stress response?
What is the HPA axis pathway?
