The Acute Stress Response

This analysis persists of key points, about The article “Stress and the brain by Janet Elder”. The author forged an excellent informative piece to educate the reader on the effects of stress on the brain. The author states that “Stress can be both good and bad. It is part of life, and your brain and body respond to it”. The author clarifies that, "Whether stress is harmful or helpful depends on the amount of stress, how severe it is, and how long it lasts".

.) As Dr. Perry states, “the stress response system originates in the lower parts of the brain and help regulate and organize higher parts of the brain; if they are poorly organized or regulated themselves, they dysregulate and disorganized higher parts of the brain”

-The way your brain regulates the chemicals and hormones your body releases in response to stress (Mayo Clinic, 2014)

Studies has shown that the most used treatment for adolescents with PTSD is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) . According to Rezvan, Baghban, Bahrami, & Abedi (2008), CBT acts by trying to replace disgusting memories and recurring fears with multiple adaptive coping responses (p. 309). A study was conducted by Allen, Oseni, and Allen (2012), on a 16 year-old Caucasian male called Adam, who presented with symptoms of Post traumatic stress disorder that came from him witnessing his brother’s death. His brother got into a car accident which left him in critical condition and sadly pass away shortly after being admitted to a hospital (p. 633). Adam presented with experiencing feelings of sadness and sense of hopelessness, chest pains, lightheadedness, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, episodes of anger and other symptoms of panic attacks.

“When this response is chronically activated, people can suffer from decreased immunity and other health problems” (Good). Many other health problems can also occur when people have fight or flight constantly. Those who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) constantly live with the feeling of fight or flight. This can affect how they see normal stress throughout their day. Professionals work with people's mental health trying to allow them a harder trigger into the panic of a stressful situation, so get prescribed medical drugs to remain calm. The hypothalamus is a bit like a command center that controls the brain. It allows the brain to send signals through the nervous system throughout the body.Researcher at Harvard states, “While the amygdala sends a distress signal which can happen during work sudden deadline, or a persistent worry about losing a job can cause a mental shut down in the normal functions” (Harvard). it is most commonly found in humans, but humans are not the only things to use the fight or flight technique, animals and plants also take advantage of this

The way your brain regulates the chemicals and hormones your body releases in response to stress."(2)(Mayoclinicorg, 2016)

Acute stress disorder (ASD) was introduced into DSM-IV. Scientists wanted to be able to describe acute stress reactions that takes place in the initial month after dealing with a traumatic event and before the possibility of diagnosing post traumatic stress disorder. They wanted to be able to identify trauma survivors in the acute phase who are high risk for post traumatic stress disorder (Bryant., 1999). Scientists created a review that considers ASD in relation to other approaches to Acute stress responses, to critique and discuss ASD in relation to Adjustment Disorder. After completing the review the scientist found the evidence suggests that ASD does not adequately

The primary purpose of the article was to discuss how stress affects the brain, specifically the prefrontal cortex. According to Watson and Breedlove, there are changes evident in the amygdala if they suffer from recurrent panic attacks. The article specifically stated the role of amygdala when the prefrontal cortex shut down, introducing an entirely new perspective to the role of the amygdala in the brain when the brain is stressed. The article suggests that the amygdala takes over when the prefrontal cortex shut down due to stress, while the textbook simply provides a cursory explanation that explains the correlation between panic attacks and the amygdala. Moreover, the article specifically describes the role of the pyramidal cells in the brain, ultimately contributing to the overarching theme of the article.

When people think of PTSD, many times they think of it in relation to war veterans. However, there are many traumatic incidents that may cause PTSD such as mugging, rape, torture, being kidnapped or held captive against one’s will, abuse, severe accidents, the sudden death of a loved one, terrorist attacks, or natural disasters such as earthquakes or Hurricane Katrina. Additional stress after the incident, such as the loss of a job, could further compound the issue. It is important to note that PTSD can happen to anyone at any age, including

Acute stress disorder is an anxiety disorder due to exposure to a traumatic or stressful event (management in health). It is developed directly through psychologically or physiologically challenging

The theory of the amygdala’s contribution to fear is based on testable evidence, but this evidence comes from psychological experiments known as “fear conditioning.” According to LeDoux (2003), “fear conditioning allows new or learned threats to automatically activate evolutionarily tuned ways of responding to danger” (p.728). Thus “the electrical stimulation of the amygdala can produce a complex pattern of behavioral and autonomic changes that highly resemble fear” (Davis, 1999, p. 358). The only draw backs of “fear conditioning” on humans and animals is ethics, this is seen to be harmful for the sample, this is

One common theme in mental disorders (MD) is the alteration in the stress related brain system via the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. HPA axis is involved in regulating the immune system, mood, energy, digestion and temperature. It is pivotal in responses to distress, stress and damage. Activation of the stress system through the HPA axis causes central behavioral and peripheral changes that improve the body’s ability to maintain homeostasis (Tsigos and Chrousos, 2002). The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is the chief pathway that responds to stress. The principle hormones involved in the HPA axis are corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH), adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) and glucocorticoids (mainly cortisol in humans and corticosterone in rodents). Research suggests one possible biological link between stress, anxiety and depression may involve a corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) receptor (Magalhaes et al., 2010).

Emotional responses have been tied to neurotransmitter activation in the development of memories. Through the use of arousal theory (Christianson, 1992), it is believed that stronger emotions cause the development of strong memories, while weaker emotions will form weak memories. It was expanded upon earlier that the amygdala is the area of the brain responsible for emotions that we feel. Arousal theory is backed up by the amygdala’s role in memory. When an emotional event occurs, neurotransmitters will be released. The strength of the emotional event determines the amount of neurotransmitters released, with strong events leading to more to be released and weak events leading to less being released. For example, in the case of a stressful event the brain will release more glutamate. This often leads to a stronger memory of the stressful event and usually results in better memory encoding than that of a non-emotional event (McGaugh, 2003).

Stress and anxiety is encountered or experienced by the general public and healthcare professionals alike. Their perception is often uniquely personal. According to Horwitz, anxiety and its disorders involve brain regions that are devoted to fear recognition, including the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and hippocampus, and neurochemicals, such as GABA, epinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin (Horwitz, A., 2013).

Mitra, Adamex & Sapolsky (2009) investigated the individual differences that appear in managing stress and anxiety. Despite many people undergoing traumatic events within their lifetime, most do not develop an anxiety disorder as a consequence. Why is this the case? Correlational studies have proposed that individual characteristics, as well as our genes and personal experiences, contribute to the development of PTSD. One factor thought to be critical in this process is a change in the functioning of the seratonin transporter (5-HTLPR); the basolateral amygdala (BLA) is important for fear responses, and the degree of its reactivity is regulated by the 5-HTLPR. Through a technique called predator stress exposure, anxiety-like characteristics can be displayed in rodents and manifested in the brain as an increase in signal communication between the amygdala and other structures. This increase in communication increases the sensitivity of the BLA. An important mechanism in this increased excitation in the BLA is thought to be the structure of it’s dendrites: different dendrite structures could affect the reaction a rodent has to a predator stressor. In cases of anxiety or stress, larger dendrites in BLA are present. Similarly, if the length of dendrites is decreased, the anxiety characteristics decrease as well.