New Research on Stress

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Friday November 25, 2005

Don't get too stressed-out while Christmas shopping. Several researchprojects have announced findings related to stress.

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Researchers have visualized the effects of everydaypsychological stress in a healthy human brain for the first time.

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Stress may raise cholesterol in healthy adults.

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The number of serotonin receptors in the brain affects ourresponse to stress.Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania reported visualizing the effects of everydaypsychological stress in a healthy human brain for the first time. According to a Science Dailyreport the researchers found "increased cerebral blood-flow during the 'stress test' in the rightanterior portion of the brain (prefrontal cortex) -- an area long associated with anxiety anddepression....The increased cerebral blood-flow persisted even when the testing was complete."Read more at Science Daily.

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Penn Research Permits First-ever Visualization Of Psychological Stress In The Human Brain

ScienceDaily (Nov. 23, 2005)

— Using a novel application of an fMRI(functional magnetic resonance imaging) technique, researchers at theUniversity of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have, for the first time,visualized the effects of everyday psychological stress in a healthyhuman brain. Their work, performed at Penn's Center for FunctionalNeuroimaging, provides a neuro-imaging marker of psychological stress-- which will pave the way for the development of improved strategiesfor preventing or correcting the long-term health consequences of chronic stress. The researchers' study appears in the November 21online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Health & Medicine

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Mental Health Research

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Functional neuroimaging

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Emotional detachment

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Procrastination

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Sleep deprivationIn the Penn study, researchers induced stress on healthy subjects by asking them to quicklytackle challenging mental exercises while being monitored for performance. During the fMRIscans, the researchers also recorded subjects' emotional responses -- such as stress, anxiety,and frustration -- and measured the corresponding changes in stress hormone and heart rate.Many subjects described themselves as being "flustered, distracted, rushed and upset" by thestress task.The results showed increased cerebral blood-flow during the "stress test" in the right anterior portion of the brain (prefrontal cortex) -- an area long associated with anxiety and depression.More interestingly, the increased cerebral blood-flow persisted even when the testing wascomplete. These results suggest a strong link between psychological stress and negativeemotions. On the other hand, the prefrontal cortex is also associated with the ability to performexecutive functions -- such as working memory and goal-oriented behavior -- that permit humansto adapt to environmental challenges and threats. "The message from this study is that whilestress may be useful in increasing focus, chronic stress could also be detrimental to mentalhealth," concludes Jiongjiong Wang, PhD, Assistant Professor of Radiology and principalinvestigator of the study."How the brain reacts under psychological stress is an untouched subject for cognitiveneuroscientists, but it is certainly a critical piece of the puzzle in understanding the health effectsof stress," adds Wang. "Our findings should help significantly advance our understanding of thisprocess."To date, most fMRI studies have indirectly measured changes in cerebral blood-flow andmetabolism induced by neural activation, using a technique that is sensitive to the oxygenationlevels in blood. "The fMRI technique employed in our study -- arterial spin labeling -- can measurecerebral flood-flow directly," states John A. Detre, MD, Associate Professor of Neurology andRadiology, and senior author of the study. "This technique is very similar to PET (positronemission tomography) scanning, except that it's entirely non-invasive -- without the need for injections or radioactivity. In this elegant technique, water molecules in subjects' own blood are'tagged' by the magnet and used as the natural contrast agent to measure cerebral blood-flow."Researchers at Penn's Center for Functional Neuroimaging have been at the forefront of thedevelopment of this technique, and its applications to imaging brain-function during cognitive andemotional processes.###The study was sponsored by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutesof Health, and the U.S. Air Force. In addition to Drs. Wang and Detre, the team of investigatorsincluded Penn researchers Hengyi Rao, Gabriel S. Wetmore, Patricia M. Furlan, MarcKorczykowski, and David F. Dinges.Editors' Notes: For more information about the Center for Functional Neuroimaging (CFN) atPenn, go towww.cfn.upenn.edu.

Adapted from materials provided by University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

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University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (2005, November 23). Penn Research PermitsFirst-ever Visualization Of Psychological Stress In The Human Brain.

ScienceDaily

. RetrievedJanuary 7, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com

/releases/2005/11/051122210156.htm

The background of this image shows the mean cerebral blood flow of all the subjects undergoing the stress tasks (here, mental arithmetic) acquired using the continuous arterial spin labeling (CASL) technique. The foreground shows the detected activation in the right prefrontal cortex --an area long associated with anxiety and depression -- when the subjects are under stress.(Image Courtesy: Jiongjiong Wang, PhD, and John A. Detre, MD, University of PennsylvaniaSchool of Medicine)

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