Stress Inhibits Brain's Ability to Grow

Travoltus writes "Dr. Professor Elizabeth Gould claims to have shown that, with marmoset primates, stress causes the brain to switch to survival mode in which it thinks only about survival; it simply does not invest new cells in other, more complex thought processes. Dr. Gould also suggests that poverty has an adverse effect on the brain. Dr. Gould is a Princeton researcher who concentrates on studying adult neurogenesis, a phenomenon that, 20 years ago, most scientists believed did not occur."

The leap from marmoset to man

[nystagman]

Interesting, but with few exceptions, humans are not marmosets.

There is a bit more happening in my brain than in a marmoset's.

Re:What about other people?

[east coast]

I meant the stress that people thrive on. 'Non-consequential' stress, where if you screw up it's not the end of your world.

Well, I see your point but being in a situation you "enjoy" is not necessarily beneficial. Even those who enjoy the fast paced life may not be in a good position as far as overall physical and mental health.

Re:I am guessing that

[Pantero Blanco]

The article actually goes into that.

"The social implications of this research are staggering. If boring environments, stressful noises, and the primate's particular slot in the dominance hierarchy all shape the architecture of the brain--and Gould's team has shown that they do--then the playing field isn't level. Poverty and stress aren't just an idea: they are an anatomy. Some brains never even have a chance."

Now, I don't think that poverty alone would cause the stifled neurogenesis they're talking about, but if you combine it with a lot of the other stressful things that tend to come along with poverty (crime-filled environment, fractured/broken families, poor education), that might do it.

Re:What about other people?

[Sir Holo]

What about the other people that thrive on working to deadlines and with demanding workloads? I'm sure there are many professions that are very stressful that require people to keep themselves 'sharp' and alert at all times.

It depends what you would call "stress."

As a child, did you go to bed hungry?
Did you grow up only ever knowing one parent?
Were you stopped by cops on the street and searched, from as young as 10 years of age?
Were you taken away from your parents at an early age?
Did you, as a child, have to hide in the bathroom to get away from a day-and-night party your mother was having, just to get a little bit of your homework done?
Do you come from a "broken" home?

These things are the "stress" the researcher is looking at. The marathon sessions in the stacks at the library, or the projects working under deadline, that guys like us take on, are not that - they're taking on challenges. From TFA:

For the last several years, she and her post-doc, Mirescu, have been depriving newborn rats of their mother for either 15 minutes or three hours a day. For an infant rat, there is nothing more stressful. Earlier studies had shown that even after these rats become adults, the effects of their developmental deprivation linger: They never learn how to deal with stress. "Normal rats can turn off their glucocorticoid system relatively quickly," Mirescu says. "They can recover from the stress response. But these deprived rats can't do that. It's as if they are missing the 'off' switch."

And a little bit more from TFA:

On a cellular level, the scars of stress can literally be healed by learning new things. ... As predicted, putting marmosets in a plain cage--the kind typically used in science labs--led to plain-looking brains. The primates suffered from reduced neurogenesis and their neurons had fewer interconnections.

However, if these same marmosets were transferred to an enriched enclosure--complete with branches, hidden food, and a rotation of toys--their adult brains began to recover rapidly. In under four weeks, the brains of the deprived marmosets ... demonstrated significant increases in the density of their connections and amount of proteins in their synapses.

The realization that typical laboratory conditions are debilitating for animals has been one of the accidental discoveries of the neurogenesis field.

As a parent...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I can say that such "evidence" won't matter. You have to make a choice, lose everything and live on the streets so you can be with your kids, or you get childcare. At least, that's the reality for many other parents I know. And God knows that if our business failed at this point, our kids would be in childcare as we took whatever 9 to 5s we could get to keep them clothed and fed.

Our society(US) don't give a shit about things like scientific evidence for stress or optimal child development, or family, etc... It's not profitable. Before some knee jerk libertarian or deluded republican who thinks he's mr. free market replies, you would better yourself and your cause if you recognized the reality that our society and capitalism in general, doesn't care, because otherwise you sound like a daydreamer.

Re:I am guessing that

[Marxist Hacker 42]

But that is *exactly* what the article is suggesting: that under survival stress, primate brains going all the way back to the marmosets concentrate their learning entirely on subjects that help them survive and *nothing* else. This explains the phenomenon of "street smarts" in poor urban human populations, where somebody who completely failed at school and is unable to read nevertheless is able to survive, but wastes all their money on alcohol, drugs, and TV.