Stress Is Bad For Your Brain

We all know stress is bad for us, but medical researchers now believe that long-term stress may actually shrink neurons in the brain.

Stanford University biological sciences Professor Robert Sapolsky recently summarized what scientists have learned from using high-resolution MRIs that take pictures of the brain's hippocampus.? The hippocampus?is the region of brain responsible for explicit, declarative memory-for knowing a fact like an address or the name of a friend, and knowing that one knows it.

Washington University researchers studied the brains of people who had recovered from long-term, major depression with those of the same age, sex and education who had not.? In those with a history of depression, they found they had smaller hippocampi, averaging as much as 15% smaller in volume.? Harvard researchers found that this region of the brain was 26% smaller in Vietnam veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.? Yale researchers found a 12% atrophy in the left hippocampus of adults who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder because of childhood sexual abuse.

Back to the List