Stress is considered one of the main psychological factors that effect most people, according to the self-assessment worksheet my highest levels of stresses are the Emotional ranging at 19 out of 20 possible points, and Cognitive stress did not fall far behind with 16points.
Short-Term Stress Vs Long-Term Stress
According to the articles BrainFacts.org, in short-term stress the Hippocampus become more active releasing dopamine to the reward section of the brain leaving the person feeling happy and alert. However, with prolonged-stress levels the Hippocampus is subjectable to injury preventing new cells to be born and can cause other cells to die disrupting memory and the learning process, also with less dopamine in the system the person can suffer from fear, anxiety, and depression (Society for Neuroscience, 2012).
Brain’s Ability to Handle Stress
According to Great pacific media Excitatory synapse neurotransmitters release Dopamine, Histamine, Norepinephrine, Epinephrine, Glutamate, and Acetylcholine hormones that play an important role in the brain’s ability to handle stress (Kellevision, 2008).
The Hippocampus
The hippocampus is the fragment of the brain whose function is to generate …show more content…
learning and memory, it is located in the middle temporal lobe, in the lower part of the cortex and touches the brainstem. Hippocampus creates neurons throughout our entire life this neurons for part of the limbic system which are a set of nerves that create emotions, long term memory, and spatial orientation, “Alzheimer’s disease is associated with a lack of acetylcholine in certain regions of the brain” (Kellevision, 2008).
Significantly Impacts Caused By Stress
According to Ted Talks. How stress affects your brain, chronic stress can cause long-term changes in the brain and an increases in the risk of mental illness like anxiety and mood disorders, it can also interferes with the synchronization and balance of communication as well as emotion, memory and studies have shown that it reduces the size of the brain (Murgia, M, (.n.d.)).
Implications of Chronic Stress on the Developing Brain
After reviewing “Effects of Stress on the Developing Brain”, we learn that life abuse at a young age along with negligence have antagonistic consequence upon the developing brain that potentially may result in “poor self-control and emotional regulation, impair cognitive development, and raise the risk of cardiovascular, metabolic and immune system diseases” a couple of examples provided were the Head Start Program and it’s effectiveness when the child is in a stable environment, and how the brain regulates the body “hormonal, immune and metabolic processes stress, sex, and metabolism can alter the structure of neurons and their connections, influence behavior and even change the hormonal processes” themselves (Society for Neuroscience, 2011).
Parental care
In the rat experiments, it was observed that rats subjected to a more nurturing environment had higher levels of cortisol receptors than those pups who had negligent moms, those pups were more subjectable to stress creating a genetic change called Epigenetic Changes. It was also discovered that at a young age that can be reverse if paired with a nurturing mom and the Epigenetic Change caused by that nurturing rat can be passed down to many generations and were inheritable by the pups (Murgia, M, (n.d.)).