Limbic response to stress linking life trauma and hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis function

Summary & key facts

Researchers measured how the emotional parts of the brain (the limbic system) respond to a stress task and how that links to a person’s past traumatic experiences and to their body’s stress hormone activity. They found that people with more life trauma showed different limbic responses to stress, and those brain responses were connected to differences in how the body’s stress system released cortisol. This suggests the brain’s reaction to stress may help explain why past trauma is tied to later changes in the body’s stress hormones, but the study does not prove trauma causes those brain or hormone changes.

Key facts:

• The team used brain imaging to record limbic system activity while people went through a controlled stress task, and they also measured cortisol, the main stress hormone, at the same time.
• People who reported more lifetime traumatic events showed altered limbic responses to the stress task compared with people with fewer traumatic events.
• Those limbic responses were linked to the way cortisol was released during the stress test, meaning brain activity partly explained the connection between past trauma and current stress-hormone patterns.
• The findings suggest a pathway where past trauma is associated with changes in how the emotional brain reacts to stress, which in turn is associated with altered activity of the body’s stress system (the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis)
• Because the study looked at people at one point in time, it cannot prove that trauma caused the brain and hormone differences; other factors could play a role.

Topics

Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior Stress Responses and Cortisol Tryptophan and brain disorders

Categories

Behavioral Neuroscience Life Sciences Neuroscience

Tags

Amygdala Basal (medicine) Central nervous system Diabetes mellitus Endocrinology Hippocampus Hormone Hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis Internal medicine Limbic system Medicine Neuroscience Psychology