Life Sciences Commons^™

Synaptic Correlates For Stress Sensitization, Julia Kj Sunstrum

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The stress response is essential for survival, but it can be detrimental when persistently activated during chronic stress. Therefore, the magnitude of the stress response must be finely-tuned in order to be adaptive. Indeed, an animal’s stress response system normally undergoes habituation that decreases responses to a repeated, familiar stressor. Importantly, the same animal still responds normally, or even becomes sensitized, to an unfamiliar (novel) stressor. This indicates that chronic stress simultaneously induces two opposing types of plasticity, one that underlies habituated responses and another that drives sensitized responses. The activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis — a hallmark of …