Stress and Glucocorticoid Contributions to Normal and Pathological Aging

Excerpt

An extensive body of work has substantiated the idea that repeated or prolonged exposure to GCs has a deleterious impact on brain function, and has also provided evidence that GCs likely contribute to age-related decline in brain function. These stress- and GC-mediated effects on age are evident across behavior, electrophysiological, and anatomical levels. Despite the sophistication of our knowledge of the effects of stress and GCs across many dimensions of brain function, future research will undoubtedly continue to expand our understanding of the ways by which this occurs and suggest new therapeutic targets for intervention within a subset of people whose brain function is disproportionately affected during senescence.