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Review
. 2024;22(5):935-962.
doi: 10.2174/1570159X21666230703091435.

Impact of Stress on Brain Morphology: Insights into Structural Biomarkers of Stress-related Disorders

Narcís Cardoner  1   2   3   4 , Raül Andero  3   4   5   6   7 , Marta Cano  1   3 , Ignacio Marin-Blasco  5 , Daniel Porta-Casteràs  1   2   4 , Maria Serra-Blasco  3   8 , Esther Via  9   10 , Muriel Vicent-Gil  1 , Maria J Portella  1   2   3
Affiliations
Review

Impact of Stress on Brain Morphology: Insights into Structural Biomarkers of Stress-related Disorders

Narcís Cardoner et al. Curr Neuropharmacol. 2024.

Abstract

Exposure to acute and chronic stress has a broad range of structural effects on the brain. The brain areas commonly targeted in the stress response models include the hippocampus, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex. Studies in patients suffering from the so-called stress-related disorders -embracing post-traumatic stress, major depressive and anxiety disorders- have fairly replicated animal models of stress response -particularly the neuroendocrine and the inflammatory models- by finding alterations in different brain areas, even in the early neurodevelopment. Therefore, this narrative review aims to provide an overview of structural neuroimaging findings and to discuss how these studies have contributed to our knowledge of variability in response to stress and the ulterior development of stress-related disorders. There are a gross number of studies available but neuroimaging research of stress-related disorders as a single category is still in its infancy. Although the available studies point at particular brain circuitries involved in stress and emotion regulation, the pathophysiology of these abnormalities -involving genetics, epigenetics and molecular pathways-, their relation to intraindividual stress responses -including personality characteristics, self-perception of stress conditions…-, and their potential involvement as biomarkers in diagnosis, treatment prescription and prognosis are discussed.

Keywords: Brain morphology; HPA.; PTSD; basolateral amygdala; stress response systems.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest, financial or otherwise.

Figures

Fig. (1)
Fig. (1)
Brain regions prominent in the literature of stress-related disorders: the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC; light green), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC; light orange), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC; magenta), anterior cingulate gyrus (ACC; dark green), posterior cingulate gyrus (PCC; light purple), cerebellum (grape), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC; turquoise green), insula (dark gray), amygdala (dark orange), hippocampus (plum) and parahippocampus (heliotrope). Created with BioRender.com.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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