Course framework

Neural basis of stress -> stress behavior -> neuropsychiatric disorder

Resilience -> resilient behavior -> successful coping
Application-> optimal behavior-> thriving life
Understanding human conditions thru human and animal research, case studies

Mcq: 30%
Short ans: 15%
Case studies: 45%
Final essay: 10%

Stress: comes from expectations, environment (big factor), limited opportunities but
competition

Resilience: coping with stress, nothing seems to bother them, take care more of others who
are breaking down

PTSD: how badly trauma has affected them and they cannot go on with their daily lives
properly

Difference between resilient people vs normal people

Preparedness (not the main factor): more prepared?
Mindset: Negative thoughts vs positive thoughts (not always 100%). Anxiety cannot be
controlled. Thoughts -> talk about brain -> mechanisms about stress and resilience
happening in brain (one impt aspect of being resilient)
Changing perspective: How do you project yourself? -> go back to preparedness again. Once
you get into it, you cannot leave it.
-With all the good hormones and transmitter coming out of exercise can help rescue stress
-coming out from more stressful experiences, know there’s nothing to stress about
-how body copes with it and learns about stress

Evolution of stress and its misfit today (main 3 of stress)

-Flight-fight: Predator-prey
Confront or escape from a situation with the goal being wanting to survive
Fleeing or fighting to keep your life in the wild.

-Anxiety eg public speaking

Why is stress causing anxiety and how is it causing problems for us when it is supposed to
save us?
Why is someone stressed when giving public speaking? (difference between anxiety and
predator-prey)
-overthinking (perceptions of other people’s thought of her??, mind moving to the worst
case scenario whether real or not)
-subtle stressor that we sense which contribute to stress e.g. social expectations (big factor
in human), staring at you more scary (major component because when an animal stares at
you the next moment it will attack you, grow up thinking like that)
-Fear: survival instinct and also core of anxiety

Brain and body respond to stresses and creates a lot of apprehension, body acting a lot in a
lot of parts including brain which has consequences in the long term.
Stress one of the psychological stress disorders seen.

Stress curve (find pic)

-Stress is not always bad
Too little: inactive, laidback
Optimum stress
Too much stress (overload): Fatigue
Burnout: anxiety/panic/anger, breakdown

When stress is low, low performance e.g. waking up, going to school
Stressor goes on and on, a little stress helps to enhance performance (learn subjects and
prepare for tests) – without overthinking and stressing about it, performance increases
More stressors (have to learn and get good grades) – overdoing and anxious, worried about
results, point of saturations, not effective and tires body out
Builds up stress – everything you do only reduces performance, because of fatigue and
exhaustion, body is affected, cannot be as sharp or productive in memorizing. Brain
degenerates, overtime (years/months) can be burning money (economic stress/social
stress). Saturated the body and brain and performance break down, psychological disorders
come by e.g. depression

*Stress is still essential as long as you know where to stop.

Can stress kill you? Yes.

Most stressed 15-45 y/o
Least happy 15-45 y/o
Study: percentage of all-americans who say they experienced worry during a lot of the day “yesterday”
January 2008-october 2009

-always struggling to find a partner, get married, have kids

-work phase is most active phase of life – most stress

2nd leading cause of death disability (age 15-45 y/o depression, suicide)

Other indirect consequences of long term stress: cardiac arrest, immune compromise, drug
addictions (all are triggered by high amount of stress directly/indirectly)
How does these come about from just being stressed?

Course framework
Neural basis of stress -> stress behavior -> neuropsychiatric disorder
Resilience -> resilient behavior -> successful coping
Application-> optimal behavior-> thriving life
Understanding human conditions thru human and animal research, case studies
Mcq: 30%
Short ans: 15%
Case studies: 45%
Final essay: 10%

*Absolute clarity in conceptual framework is very important

Particular emphasis on neurobiological basis and translation to psychological condition
How does it apply/translate?
Flight or fight response: why was it important in early environment
How about now? Is it still so important?
What happened in the middle? Relation between brain and stress? What about coevolution
of both?
Question to ponder: Can stress evolve out? Should it?

Fight or flight is everything to them. No time to ponder. Either gets killed or they run away.
Brain not so complex that they might many connections whether meaningful/meaningless.

Connection of ulcer to stress: ulcers always associated with stress until recently. Ulcers are a
result of a particular bacteria. People with stress tend to get more ulcers due to getting
more bacterial infection from immune compromise.

Stress physiology
HPA, brain pathways and brain as main driver of stress response
-hypothalamus, pituitary gland, adrenal gland. Central HPA axis triggered during stress. H
secrete CRF -> P secrete ACTH-> A secrete cortisol (stress hormone) -> flight or fight
response
Metabolic energy goes into the body -> helps animal fight the situation
Long term damaging to body

Cycle of stress response in diff parts of the body (acute stress response – flight or fight)
Only when stressor is present
Homeostatic cycle (find image)

-heart rate increased

Breathing increased
Fats and glucose released for energy
Blood flow diverted from non essential body areas to muscles and brains
Perspiration increased
Immune system suppressed

Topic 1: Stress psychology

Stress related fear, anxiety, depression, ptsd, phobia, aggression
Body and mind connected
Emotions and behavior direct what goes thru mind
Predisposition – neurological disorders run in family (only a very small part) most of the
time is not rly genetic predisposition but life’s experiences
*environment that you are placed in. interaction between gene and environment placement
makes the individual resilient or not

Depression is the topmost cause of death and disability

Topic 2: Stress neurobiology: main brain substrate for learning memory stress fear
(hippocampus, cortex, amygdala, mPFC)

Topic 3: Stress neuropsychology: what drives stress. Perception, memory recall, emotional
significance (hippocampus, cortex, amygdala, mPFC)
Impt regulators of hpa axis – a lot of feedback

Topic 4: Interaction between different brain regions in bringing abt survival or fear memory
Visual, prefrontal cortex: executive function
Hippocampus: declarative, spatial memory
Amygdala: anxiety, fear

Stress immediately activates emotional reaction.

Topic 5: How are regions of brain involved? Glucocorticoid receptors plays crucial role.
Negative feedback when sense glucocorticoid is high, to bring it back.
Balance between two to balance hpa axis

Topic 6: Relation between grs, mrs, inverted U of behavior level, hormone and brain
functions

Eustress (good stress) and distress: How to enhance eustress and its role in survival?
Where is resilience? What is homeostasis?
Eustress: first half but towards the second quadrant area

Allostasis: process of achieving stability/homeostasis. Anything that disrupts allostasis Is

stress.
Conditions that lead to allostatic load:
1, repeated freq of stress response
2. failure to habituate or turn off

Allostatic overload is a state in which serious pathophysiology can occur

Adaptive response: hpa activation, cort secretion, energy, alert)

Adaptive response/resilience: behavior, physiology (hormones), brain changes

Behavior is the core element
-not only in genes but in environment too
-gene-environment interaction (intricately related)
-most central indicator of psychopathology

Tryon’s 1942 artificial selection experiment

*find image
Environment dominates over gene directly
Donald o hebb in 1947 also

Enrichment strengthens neural circuitry, in contrast to stress which shrinks the same

Enriched environment: exercise, environment enrichment (toys, climbing, mild novel food),
sleep, social interaction/enrichment/support, music/empathy, solving mild complex tools,
meditation, reward with delay, stress-inoculation

Exercise-> increase in Growth factors, neurogenesis, plasticity (how neurons change to

stimulus), vascular func, cognition -> more new connections

Is sleep good for my brain

Role of sleep in allostasis/re-establishing balance/homeostasis
-new neurons generated during sleep (minimally 6-8h)
-rejuvenate, mind processes during the day is revisited, resting but brain working maximally

What do exercise/sleep/enrichment typically do to strengthen neural circuit?

Plasticity:
-brain volume,structure
-neural level: enhance connections
-no. of neurons
-changes in single neurons: structure, function
-single and multiple synapses (change in no. and structure)
-epigenetics (environment bring abt changes in gene expression)
-molecules, proteins
-transgenerational (parents stressed, next generation also stressed)
-survival capacity (reproduction, immune system, defense system, cardiovascular system)

Human experience of stress sensitivity and resilience.

-use of fmri to study stress disorders. Resilience seen in 10% of population

Therapeutics for extremes

1. how does it work till now? (medicines eg sedatives, muscle effects eg ssris, counselling)
Problems and gains with them

2. what need to be done

3. gene therapy, deep brain stimulation, cognitive behavior therapy

4. basic understanding of underlying neurobiological pathways to instruct/induce resilience

(awareness and specificity).

Basic neurological pathwasy need to be identified, studied, tinkered with no