Stress Responses and Cortisol

Development and cross-tissue validation of a methylation profile score for the cortisol response to stress

The paper develops a methylation profile score to predict cortisol response to stress and validates it across tissues.

Fast and Slow Gene Expression Changes in Blood Following Acute Social Stress

This study identifies fast and slow gene expression changes in human blood after acute social stress, revealing distinct immune cell-related transcriptional responses and potential molecular mechanisms linking stress to psychiatric disorders.

Adolescent Stress Exposure: Behavioral Consequences and Molecular Mechanisms in Corticolimbic Networks

This study investigates the long-term behavioral and molecular effects of adolescent chronic variable stress in rats, revealing sex- and region-specific changes in corticolimbic circuits.

Early-life stress alters chromatin modifications in VTA to prime stress sensitivity

This study shows early-life stress alters chromatin modifications in the VTA, increasing stress sensitivity through changes in histone dynamics and Setd7 activity.

Hypothalamic recurrent inhibition regulates functional states of stress effector neurons.

This study identifies recurrent inhibition as a key circuit motif regulating functional states of stress effector neurons through experimental and computational approaches.

Inflammatory Proteins are Highly Variable During a Natural Stressor: A Call for Intensive Longitudinal Blood Microsampling

This study shows that inflammatory proteins vary little between individuals over time, highlighting the need for intensive longitudinal sampling to capture dynamic changes in immune responses.

Individual Dynamics in Stress-Related Pain Responses

This study examines how individual differences in pain-related distress and stress reactivity influence stress-induced changes in pain sensitivity, finding preliminary evidence of a moderating role of catastrophizing and fear of pain.

Multimodal Behavior Scoring quantifies depression-like severity across chronic stress models and identifies stress-resilient mice

The paper introduces MBS, a multimodal scoring system to quantify depression-like severity in stressed mice, identifying resilient subpopulations and behavioral patterns across stress models.

Predicting stress response trajectories: Differential contributions of limbic and prefrontal regions to cortisol and affective responses

This study identifies distinct stress response trajectories in humans by analyzing brain region predictors of cortisol and affective responses to psychosocial stress.

Prefrontal-medullary circuitry is necessary for sex-specific responses to metabolic stress in rats

This study shows that the IL-RVLM circuit is essential for sex-specific glucose homeostasis under chronic stress in rats.

Acute Stress in Female Adolescent Rats Increases Anxiety-like but not Depression-like Behaviors

This study shows that acute stress in female adolescent rats increases anxiety-like behaviors but not depression-like behaviors, regardless of the timing of stress exposure.

Aging Leads to Altered Physiological Reactivity in Response to Repeated Social Separation Stress in a Nonhuman Primate Model

This study examines how aging affects physiological reactivity to social stress in marmosets, finding differences in HPA activity, metabolic markers, and social behavior between peri-geri and very-geri females and males.

Human DNA methylation and the cortisol response to an acute psychological stressor: a systematic review and meta-analysis

This paper reviews and meta-analyzes DNA methylation's association with cortisol response to acute stress in humans, finding mixed evidence with some support for NR3C1 in infants.

Dynamic interaction between stress hormones and neutrophils promotes neutrophil extracellular trap formation with behavioral consequences

This study shows stress hormones induce neutrophil extracellular trap formation, linking inflammation to behavioral changes in mice and humans.

Disentangling bidirectional relationships between glucocorticoids and behavior: Experimentally elevated corticosterone levels correlate with rapid, sex-specific changes in food-acquisition behaviors of food-limited seabird chicks

The paper examines how corticosterone levels influence and are influenced by food-acquisition behaviors in seabird chicks, finding sex-specific and context-dependent relationships.

The development of trait anxiety in nonhuman primates during the first year of life

This study tracks anxious temperament development in nonhuman primates over their first year, finding linear increases and stable individual differences in threat-related behaviors and cortisol levels.

Academic stress through salivary biomarkers: A multivariate analysis of cortisol, IL-1β, CRP, and IgA levels and their variations as a function of sex.

This study examines the relationship between academic stress and salivary biomarkers in undergraduates, finding no significant association but noting gender-dependent trends.

A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Chronic Stress on the Prefrontal Transcriptome in Animal Models and Convergence with Existing Human Data

This paper identifies 133 consistently differentially expressed genes in the prefrontal cortex of chronically stressed mice across multiple stress paradigms and finds convergence with human psychiatric disorder gene expression patterns.

Linking brain structure to stress reactivity: Cingulate surface area predicts acute cortisol responses

This study identifies cingulate cortex surface area as a predictor of acute cortisol responses to psychosocial stress, with the left cingulate cortex showing the strongest association.

Social stress, cortisol awakening response and sex: Impact on hippocampus and amygdala volume

This study examines how social stress, cortisol awakening response, and sex influence hippocampus and amygdala volumes in healthy participants.

Stress History Modulates CRF Neurons to Establish Resilience

The paper identifies a critical stress exposure period that drives neurophysiological changes in CRF neurons, leading to resilience in mice exposed to repeated social defeat stress.

rbfox1 LoF mutants show disrupted bdnf/trkb2 and crhb/nr3c2 expression and increased cortisol levels during development coupled with signs of allostatic overload in adulthood

This study shows that rbfox1 loss of function in zebrafish disrupts stress-related gene expression and increases cortisol levels during development, leading to behavioral and physiological signs of allostatic overload in adulthood.

Reconfiguration of Brain-Wide Neural Activity After Early Life Adversity

This study uses MEMRI to show that early life adversity alters brain-wide neural activity in mice, with context-dependent changes in multiple brain regions after threat exposure.

Metabolic state shapes cortisol reactivity to acute stress: A systematic review and meta-analysis of metabolic and hormonal modulators

This study examines how metabolic and hormonal factors influence cortisol reactivity to acute stress through a systematic review and meta-analysis of 21 studies.

Transcriptional profiling of the cortico-accumbal pathway reveals sex-specific alterations underlying stress susceptibility

This study identifies sex-specific transcriptional changes in mPFC-NAc pathway neurons under chronic stress, revealing Xlr4b as a stress susceptibility driver in males.

Predator odor stress produces sex- and subpopulation-specific increases in alcohol drinking, anxiety-like behavior, and lateral hypothalamic crh expression

This paper investigates how predator odor stress affects alcohol drinking, anxiety-like behavior, and crh expression in male and female rats, revealing sex- and subpopulation-specific responses.

Maternal separation disrupts noradrenergic control of adult coping behaviors

This study shows that maternal separation stress disrupts noradrenergic signaling in the locus coeruleus, leading to altered coping behaviors in adulthood.

A persistent increase in gut permeability correlates with emotional dysregulation following maternal separation in male and female mice.

This study shows that maternal separation increases gut permeability and correlates with anxiety and depression-like behaviors in adult mice, with sex-specific effects.

Male and Female Mice Are Similarly Susceptible to Chronic Nondiscriminatory Social Defeat Stress Despite Differences in Attack Frequency from Aggressor

This study shows female and male mice are equally susceptible to chronic non-discriminatory social defeat stress, despite females receiving fewer attacks, and that susceptibility correlates with impaired reward valuation.

Multimodal assessment of acute stress dynamics using an Aversive Video Paradigm (AVP)

This study assesses the effects of aversive video clips on stress-related psychological, neural, and physiological responses in humans.