Stress can have a negative influence on the human brain, but increasingly it is the ability to withstand severe stress that is the focus of research.
Daniela Kaufer has a personal interest in the effects of stress. “My mum's family had a very traumatic experience when their mother died in childbirth,” she explains. The three children grew up motherless, in 1950s war-torn Israel, but there was a marked difference in how well the siblings coped. “My mum had an extremely difficult early life,” she says. “Yet she is extremely resilient.” Kaufer, who is a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, says that why her mother in particular coped so well has fascinated her.
Research into how people react to early trauma began in earnest after the Second World War. Distressing events such as the death of a parent have been found to increase children's short-term risk of major depression, anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). With advances in techniques to study genes and to explore the brain, the neurobiological study of stress is undergoing a revolution — and our view of the stress response is changing. Until about 20 years ago, the absence of a severe negative reaction such as PTSD was thought to be a lack of response. Instead, “resilience is now viewed as a reactive response”, says Kaufer.
Read more from Nature Outlook | March 2nd, 2016: https://www.nature.com/articles/531S18a