Why does stress overwhelm some people while others come
through it just fine? A very elegant new study came out
this month in the high impact scientific journal, Cell,
addressing this question. Researchers investigated some
brain functions underlying why some people are highly
susceptible to stress and others seem relatively resistant.
Although the studies were done in mice, the potential
application to humans, which I will discuss below, is not a
stretch.
Stress can lead to depression . . . sometimes
The researchers used a basic model to stress mice by
placing them in the same cage with a ‘bully’
mouse for about 15 minutes a day, for ten days in a row.
This experimental paradigm is accepted as a model for how
humans experience social stress; for example interacting
with a jerk for a boss at work, or at bully at school.
After exposure to this social stress, researchers tested
the mice for other behaviors that indicate depression,
anxiety or stress disorders. Yes, mice and rats can show
these behaviors if you know how to look for them.
We can’t give them a questionnaire to explore how the
feel. But we can look at things like how willing they are
to work for a reward (like sugar water) or how adventurous
they are at exploring new environments or new social
interactions. All of these are indicators of
‘mood’.
Whenever researchers do these types of studies there is
always a variety of responses from the animals. Some will
be susceptible to the bullying treatment and show signs of
depression behavior and others will be resilient.
Sometimes it’s good to forget
The new studies looked at the underlying neurochemistry in
a part of the brain called the VTA, which regulates mood,
and found something very interesting. Mice that had lower
activity of a specific brain hormone, called BDNF, in the
mood regulating brain region were more resilient.
The paradox is that BDNF is important for learning and
memory and mice that are low in BDNF activity typically
have learning and memory problems. The new study suggests
that under some conditions (i.e. stress) being a poor
learner is an advantage because you won’t get too
hung up on the bad experience.
The mice in these experiments were, in a sense,
predetermined to be susceptible or resilient to stress
based on their learning skills. The point is that you have
certain predispositions as to whether or not you will
succumb to bad experiences and develop a stress disorder.
Can you blame it on your brain chemistry?
This seems a bit fatalistic to me, and I like to believe
that humans have more control. We have a big cortex, which
is the part of the brain that allows us to reason. We can
choose how much value we put on an experience and alter the
ability to learn.
Learning anything requires some degree of salience. The
more important or the stronger we feel about an experience
the better it will be burned into our memories. So how does
this help?
With practice, we can control the intensity of our emotions
in any given situation. We can, in a sense, choose if an
experience will have a long-term effect. The stronger the
experience, the more difficult it will be to exert control,
but it is still there.
For example, participating in battle in war is an extremely
strong experience and our ability to control our
susceptibility to that will be limited. Whereas having
someone call you a bad name should be much easier to get
over and forget about.
Still, some people can come through war with few
psychological problems while others may develop a stress
disorder. On the other end of the spectrum, someone may be
distraught for a lifetime over a getting their feelings
hurt once.
You don’t lack control
The point I am trying to make is that, with a practice of
optimism you can tip the scales in favor of being
resilient. You can, to some degree, use your cortex
(reason) to remove the emotional strength of a bad
experience and make it more difficult for that experience
to take you down.
I make this point because the media jumped quickly on the
conclusions from the new study that indicated a
‘predetermined’ response to handling stress. I
see a dangerous trend in many neuroscience studies trying
to blame behavior on our brain chemistry. While this may be
true in animals, I don’t believe that people are that
‘hard-wired’ and think we need to maintain a
greater standard of personal responsibility.
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