How the brain and body react to stress

By Adam Sadik and Paul Paronich •

For Allie Bierkle, sophomore neuroscience major, maintaining healthy stress levels can be a complex endeavor.

“For the most part as I started taking higher level science courses my stress has increased exponentially,” Bierkle said. “I would say I am generally at a constant level of medium stress. I’ve obtained a good balance of school and life. It is challenging but I am able to balance.”

William Kochen, professor of neuroscience in the Department of Psychology, has a research concentration on Alzheimer’s, stress and brain injury. Kochen believes that stress is a natural human response that can impact a person’s health and well-being.

“There has maybe only been a dozen or so studies that have ever looked, across all of animal research, at these things combined,” Kochen said. “It’s really challenging because we know stress affects the brain, so it makes sense that it would also affect brain injury, but stress itself is also very broad.”

Kochen said the challenging aspect of stress is its far reaching impact on a range of physiological systems. Typical stressors experienced by college students include upcoming tests, papers and figuring out life after graduation. Many fail to consider how the impact of stress encompasses a lot more than anticipated.

“By affecting the brain, it affects everything, so it’s affecting the heart, the digestive tract, the liver, the kidneys and so is the brain injury,” Kochen said. “There’s tons of different neurotransmitters and proteins you can choose to look at.”

Student athletes are especially at risk for the adverse affects of stress on the brain and body given the evidence that points to stress’s ability to exacerbate already existing injuries.

In May 2022, the National Library of Medicine published a review article, “Neurobiological Links between Stress, Brain Injury, and Disease,” by Hanmu Gao et al, which expands upon the effects of long-term stress on different regions of the brain.

It says: “Intense and persistent stress can trigger a variety of psychological and cognitive deficits by causing or aggravating injuries and diseases involving key brain regions such as the hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus, and prefrontal cortex (PFC). The mechanisms are closely linked to excessive releases of various stress hormones.”

Given the evidence that points to the many dangers of chronic stress, knowing how to regulate one’s personal stressors is important in a college environment.

Vanya Gupta, sophomore neuroscience major, uses several methods to help manage her stress.

“[I am] good at time management, and realizing when you need to step away from work and give time for yourself,” Gupta said.

The different ways to reduce stress can involve simple strategies, such as choosing what to wear to school the night before. Updated personal agendas can also reduce the uncertainty that school brings to minimize stress levels.

Brain regions affected by stress: