Social Stress, Allostatic Load and Psychopathology

社会压力在精神障碍的发展和维持中的作用已经在各种诊断类别中得到了解决，包括焦虑症、重性抑郁症、精神分裂症、成瘾和人格障碍。在不同的诊断类别中，严重和/或慢性应激的高发生率已经被报道，并且与患者亚群中大脑和神经内分泌系统的活动改变有关，但对于不同的DSM诊断也是类似的。本研究假设社会压力在遗传和发育脆弱性的背景下产生影响，并将探讨一个假设，即精神分裂症和情感障碍的DMS类别中的一部分患者可以通过非稳态负荷的标志物来表征（如神经内分泌反应和负面影响），通过可能与精神病理学有关的结构和功能性大脑反应，以及对高非稳态负荷的适应标志（如改变的情感和奖励处理，药物滥用），这种模式与儿童和青少年时期严重和慢性的社会压力经历有关。作为一个长期目标，纵向评估的疾病指标的感知和社会压力的反应，应阐明，非稳态负荷和随之而来的大脑和身体的变化是否相互关联，促进社会压力的脆弱性。

The role of social stress in the development and maintenance of psychiatric disorders has been addressed in various diagnostic categories including anxiety disorders, major depression, schizophrenia, addiction and personality disorders. Across diagnostic categories, high rates of severe and/or chronic stress have been reported and have been related to altered activity of brain and neuroendocrine systems in subsets of patients, but similarly for different DSM diagnoses. With the assumption that social stress produces its effect on the background of genetic and developmental vulnerability, this project will investigate the hypothesis that a subset of patients within the DMS-categories of schizophrenia and affective disorders can be characterized by markers of allostatic load (such as neuroendocrine responses and negative affect), by structural and functional brain responses that may be related to psychopathology, and by markers of (mal)adaptation to high allostatic load (such as altered affect and reward processing, drug abuse), and that this pattern is related to severe and chronic social stress experience during childhood and adolescence. As a longterm goal, a longitudinal assessment of indicators of illness in relation to perception of and responses to social stress should elucidate, whether allostatic load and consequent brain and body changes are interrelated fostering vulnerability to social stress.