Schizophrenia Daily News Blog

The Impact of Stress on the Brain, and Schizophrenia

A new study summarized on Schizophrenia Research Forum (a web site for schizophrenia researchers) suggests that neuroscientists may be starting to understand how stress contributes to the development of schizophrenia. Researchers have identified how stress specifically changes the brain, resulting in loss of dendrite cells in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, and causing dendrite cell growth in another part of the brain. These changes were accompanied by distinctly different effects on facets of executive function (the part of the brain responsible for decision making) served by these two areas.

Schizophrenia Forum reports:

Executive function is of particular interest to researchers in schizophrenia because many patients are impaired on tests of cognitive flexibility—they often learn tasks as readily as control subjects, but then have trouble shifting strategies when the rules change. With evidence pointing to traumatic stress as a possible risk factor in schizophrenia, this new study provides a possible link between stress-induced brain alterations and some of the cognitive deficits characteristic of schizophrenia.

If you have a background in science - you might want to read the full article here: Frontal Cortical Areas Differ in Response to Stress

More information on Stress and Schizophrenia