Neuroendocrine responses to psychological stress: unmasking the protective role of the prefrontal cortex.

这个项目试图建立一幅大脑用来保护我们的身体免受心理压力潜在有害影响的机制之一的图景。当我们承受心理压力时，其中一个后果就是一种荷尔蒙--皮质酮--释放到血液中。这在短期内是有益的，因为它帮助我们的身体以一种有助于应对意外挑战的方式重新分配能量利用模式。然而，由于心理压力过大而导致的皮质酮分泌过多会损害你的健康。例如，它会使你更容易受到感染，还会加快你大脑老化的速度。当你受到心理压力时，大脑拥有某些机制，试图限制皮质酮的释放。不幸的是，在我们今天的生活条件下，这些机制不能完全胜任必要的工作，也就是说，非常高的心理压力是现代生活的一个共同特征。然而，我们相信，如果我们能够正确地了解大脑中的这些保护机制，就有可能开发出能够提高它们的效率的药物。从长远来看，这可以极大地减少我们社会中的不良健康状况。

This project seeks to build up a picture of one of the mechanisms that the brain uses to protect our bodies from the potentially harmful effects of psychological stress. When we are subjected to psychological stress one of the consequences is the release of a hormone, corticosterone, into the blood-stream. This can be beneficial in the short-term as it helps our body redistribute its pattern of energy utilization in a way that helps in coping with an unexpected challenge. However, excessive secretion of corticosterone due to excessive exposure to psychological stress can damage your health. For example, it can make you more susceptible to infection and also accelerate the rate at which your brain ages. The brain possesses certain mechanisms which try to limit the release of corticosterone when you are subjected to psychological stress. Unfortunately these mechanisms are not quite up to doing the necessary job under the conditions in which we live today, i.e. a very high level of psychological stress is a common feature of modern life. Nevertheless we believe that if we can properly understand these protective mechanisms in the brain, it may be possible to develop drugs which can boost their efficiency. In the long term this could greatly reduce ill-health in our society.