Seminars in medicine of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators

New England Journal of Medicine

Volumn 338, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 171-179

  McEwen, Bruce S ^a  

^a ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; HABITUATION; HUMAN; MALADJUSTMENT; PRIORITY JOURNAL; PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY; PSYCHOTRAUMA; STRESS; ADAPTATION; BRAIN; CARDIOVASCULAR FUNCTION; HOMEOSTASIS; IMMUNE SYSTEM; PATHOPHYSIOLOGY; PHYSIOLOGY; REVIEW;

ADAPTATION, PHYSIOLOGICAL; BRAIN; CARDIOVASCULAR PHYSIOLOGY; HOMEOSTASIS; HUMANS; IMMUNE SYSTEM; STRESS;

EID: 0032518022     PISSN: 00284793     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1056/NEJM199801153380307     Document Type: Article

References (113)

1. Selyc H. Syndrome produced by diverse nocuous agents. Nature 1936; 138:32.
2. McEwen BS, Stellar E. Stress and the individual: mechanisms leading to disease. Arch Intern Med 1993;153:2093-101.
3. Sterling P, Eyer J. Allostasis: a new paradigm to explain arousal pathology. In: Fisher S, Reason J, eds. Handbook of life stress, cognition and health. New York: John Wiley, 1988:629-49.
4. Berg K. Genetics of coronary heart disease. Prog Med Genet 1983;5: 35-90.
5. Plomin R. The role of inheritance in behavior. Science 1990;248:183-8.
6. Adler NE, Boyce T, Chesney MA, et al. Socioeconomic status and health: the challenge of the gradient. Am Psychol 1994;49:15-24.
7. Lazarus RS, Folkman S. Stress, appraisal and coping. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1984.
8. Kirschbaum C, Prussner JC, Stone AA, et al. Persistent high cortisol respouses to repeated psychological stress in a subpopulation of healthy men Psychosom Med 1995;57:468-74.
9. Matthews KA, Owens JF, Allen MT, Stoney CM. Do cardiovascular responses to laboratory stress relate to ambulatory blood pressure levels? Yes, in some of the people, some of the time. Psychosom Med 1992;54:686-97.
10. Gerin W, Pickering TG. Association between delayed recovery of blood pressure after acute mental stress and parental history of hypertension. J Hypertens 1995;13:603-10.
11. Lehman C, Rodin J, McEwen BS, Brinton R. Impact of environmental stress on the expression of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Behav Neurosci 1991;105:241-5.
12. Hagglof B, Blom L, Dahlquist G, Lonnberg G, Sahlin B. The Swedish childhood diabetes study: indications of severe psychological stress as a risk factor for type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus in childhood. Diabetologia 1991;34:579-83.
13. Raikkonen K, Keltikangas-Jarvinen L, Adlercreutz H, Hautenen A. Psychosocial stress and the insulin resistance syndrome. Metabolism 1996; 45:1533-8.
14. Bjorntorp P. "Portal" adipose tissue as a generator of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Arteriosclerosis 1990;10:493-6.
15. Jayo JM, Shively CA, Kaplan JR, Manuck SB. Effects of exercise and stress on body fat distribution in male cynomolgus monkeys. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 1993;17:597-604.
16. Moyer AE, Rodin J, Grilo CM, Cummings N, Larson LM, Rebuffe-Scrive M. Stress-induced cortisol response and fat distribution in women. Obes Res 1994;2:255-61.
17. Muller JE, Tofler GH, Stone PH. Circadian variation and triggers of onset of acute cardiovascular disease. Circulation 1989;79:733-43.
18. Kaplan JR, Pettersson K, Manuck SB, Olsson G. Role of sympathoadrenal medullary activation in the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis. Circulation 1991;84:Suppl VI:VI-23-VI-32.
19. Michelson D, Stratakis C, Hill L, et al. Bone mineral density in women with depression. N Engl J Med 1996;335:1176-81.
20. Boyar RM, Hellman LD, Roffwarg H, et al. Cortisol secretion and metabolism in anorexia nervosa. N Engl J Med 1977;296:190-3.
21. Loucks AB, Mortola JF, Girton L, Yen SSC. Alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axes in athletic women. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1989;68:402-11.
22. McCarty R. Sympathetic-adrenal medullary and cardiovascular responses to acute cold stress in adult and aged rats. J Auton Nerv Syst 1985; 12:15-22.
23. Sapolsky RM. Stress, the aging brain and the mechanisms of neuron death. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992.
24. McEwen BS. Re-examination of the glucocorticoid hypothesis of stress and aging. In: Swaab DF, Hofman MA, Mirmiran M, Ravid R, van Leeuwen FW, eds. Progress in brain research. Vol. 93. The human hypothalamus in health and disease. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1992:365-83.
25. Seeman TE, Robbins RJ. Aging and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal response to challenge in humans. Endocr Rev 1994;15:233-60.
26. Wilkinson CW, Peskind ER, Raskind MA. Decreased hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis sensitivity to cortisol feedback inhibition in human aging. Neuroendocrinology 1997;65:79-90.
27. Lowy MT, Wittenberg L, Yamamoto BK. Effect of acute stress on hippocampal glutamate levels and spectrin proteolysis in young and aged rats. J Neurochem 1995;65:268-74.
28. Sapolsky RM, Krey LC, McEwen BS. The neuroendocrinology of stress and aging: the glucocorticoid cascade hypothesis. Endocr Rev 1986; 7:284-301.
29. Meaney MJ, Aitken DH, van Berkel C, Bhatnagar S, Sapolsky RM. Effect of neonatal handling of age-related impairments associated with the hippocampus. Science 1988;239:766-8.
30. Lupien S, Lecours AR, Lussier I, Schwartz G, Nair NPV, Meaney MJ. Basal cortisol levels and cognitive deficits in human aging. J Neurosci 1994;14:2893-903.
31. Seeman TE, McEwen BS, Singer BH, Albert MS, Rowe JW. Increase in urinary cortisol excretion and memory declines: MacArthur studies of successful aging. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1997;82:2458-65.
32. Munck A, Guyre PM, Holbrook NJ. Physiological functions of glucocorticoids in stress and their relation to pharmacological actions Endocr Rev 1984;5:25-44.
33. Sternberg EM, Young WS III, Bernardini R, et al. A central nervous system defect in biosynthesis of corticotropin-releasing hormone is associated with susceptibility to streptococcal cell wall-induced arthritis in Lewis rats. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1989;86:4771-5.
34. Blanchard DC, Sakai RR, McEwen BS, Weiss SM, Blanchard RJ. Sub-ordination stress: behavioral, brain, and neuroendocrine correlates Behav Brain Res 1993;58:113-21.
35. McKittrick CR, Blanchard DC, Blanchard RJ, McEwen BS, Sakai RR. Serotonin receptor binding in a colony model of chronic social stress. Biol Psychiatry 1995;37:383-93.
36. Albeck DS, McKittrick CR, Blanchard DC, et al. Chronic social stress alters expression of corticotropin-releasing factor and argininc vasopressin mRNA in rat brain. J Neurosci 1997;17:4895-903.
37. Crofford LJ, Pillemer SR, Kalogeras KT, et al. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis perturbations in patients with fibromyalgia. Arthritis Rheum 1994;37:1583-92.
38. Heim C, Ehlert U, Hanker J, Hellhammer DH. Abuse-related post-traumatic stress disorder and alterations of the hypothalamo-pituitary adrenal axis in women with chronic pelvic pain. Psychosom Med (in press).
39. Poteliakhoff A. Adrenocortical activity and some clinical findings in acute and chronic fatigue. J Psychosom Res 1981;25:91-5.
40. Ur E, White PD, Grossman A. Hypothesis: cytokines may be activated to cause depressive illness and chronic fatigue syndrome. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 1992;241:317-22.
41. Buske-Kirschbaum A, Jobst S, Psych D, et al. Attenuated free cortisol response to psychosocial stress in children with atopic dermatitis. Psychosom Med 1997;59:419-26.
42. Yehuda R, Giller EL, Southwick SM, Lowy MT, Mason JW. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal dysfunction in posttraumatic stress disorder. Biol Psychiatry 1991;30:1031-48.
43. Yehuda R, Teicher MH, Trestman RL, Levengood RA, Siever LJ. Cortisol regulation in posttraumatic stress disorder and major depression: a chronobiological analysis. Biol Psychiatry 1996;40:79-88.
44. Schulkin J, McEwen BS, Gold PW. Allostasis, amygdala, and anticipatory angst. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 1994;18:385-96.
45. Schulz P, Kirschbaum C, Pruessner J, Hellhammer DH. Increased free cortisol secretion after wakening in chronically-stressed individuals due to work overload. Stress Med (in press).
46. Baum A, Cohen L, Hall M. Control and intrusive memories as possible determinants of chronic stress. Psychosom Med 1993;55:274-86.
47. Brindley DN, Rolland Y. Possible connections between stress, diabetes, obesity, hypertension and altered lipoprotein metabolism that may result in atherosclerosis. Clin Sci 1989;77:453-61.
48. Verdecchia P, Schillaci G, Borgioni C, et al. Cigarette smoking, ambulatory blood pressure and cardiac hypertrophy in essential hypertension. J Hypertens 1995;13:1209-15.
49. Bernadet P. Benefits of physical activity in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. J Cardiovasc Pharmacol 1995;25:Suppl 1:S3-S8.
50. Manuck SB, Kaplan JR, Adams MR, Clarkson TB. Studies of psychosocial influences on coronary artery atherogenesis in cynomolgus monkeys. Health Psychol 1988;7:113-24.
51. Shively CA, Clarkson TB. Social status and coronary artery atherosclerosis in female monkeys. Arterioscler Thromb 1994;14:721-6.
52. Bosma H, Marmot MG, Hemingway H, Nicholson AC, Brunner E, Stansfeld SA. Low job control and risk of coronary heart disease in Whitehall II (prospective cohort) study. BMJ 1997;314:558-65.
53. Schnall PL, Schwartz JE, Landsbergis PA, Warren K, Pickering TG. Relation between job strain, alcohol, and ambulatory blood pressure. Hypertension 1992;19:488-94.
54. Everson SA, Lynch JW, Chesney MA, et al. Interaction of workplace demands and cardiovascular reactivity in progression of carotid atherosclerosis: population based study. BMJ 1997;314:553-8.
55. Raikkonen K, Lassila R, Keltikangas-Jarvinen L, Hautanen A. Association of chronic stress with plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 in healthy middle-aged men. Arterioscler Thromb Vase Biol 1996;16:363-7.
56. Markowe HLJ, Marmot MG, Shipley MJ, et al. Fibrinogen: a possible link between social class and coronary heart disease. BMJ 1985;291:1312-4.
57. Seeman TE, Singer BH, Rowe JW, Horwitz RI, McEwen BS. Price of adaptation - allostatic load and its health consequences: MacArthur studies of successful aging. Arch Intern Med 1997;157:2259-68.
58. McEwen BS, De Kloet ER, Rostene W. Adrenal steroid receptors and actions in the nervous system. Physiol Rev 1986;66:1121-88.
59. Eichenbaum H, Otto T, Cohen NJ. The hippocampus - what does it do? Behav Neural Biol 1992;57:2-36.
60. LeDoux JE. In search of an emotional system in the brain: leaping from fear to emotion and consciousness. In: Gazzaniga M, ed. The cognitive neurosciences. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995:1049-61.
61. Pugh CR, Tremblay D, Fleshner M, Rudy JW. A selective role for corticosterone in contextual-tear conditioning. Behav Neurosci 1997;111:503-11.
62. Sapolsky RM. Stress in the wild. Sci Am 1990;262:116-23.
63. Jacobson L, Sapolsky R. The role of the hippocampus in feedback regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis Endocr Rev 1991;12:118-34.
64. Herman JP, Cullinan WE. Neurocircuitry of stress: central control of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical axis. Trends Neurosci 1997;20: 78-84.
65. Kirschbaum C, Wolf OT, May M, Wippich W, Hellhammer DH. Stress- and treatment-induced elevations of cortisol levels associated with impaired declarative memory in healthy adults. Life Sci 1996;58:1475-83.
66. McEwen BS, Sapolsky RM. Stress and cognitive function. Curr Opin Neurobiol 1995;5:205-16.
67. Lupien SJ, McEwen BS. The acute effects of corticosteroids on cognition: integration of animal and human model studies. Brain Res Brain Res Rev 1997;24:1-27.
68. McEwen BS, Albeck D, Cameron H, et al. Stress and the brain: a paradoxical role for adrenal steroids. Vitam Horm 1995;51:371-402.
69. Uno H, Tarara R, Else JG, Suleman MA, Sapolsky RM. Hippocampal damage associated with prolonged and fatal stress in primates. J Neurosci 1989;9:1705-11.
70. Sapolsky RM. Why stress is bad for your brain. Science 1996;273:749-50.
71. McEwen BS, Magarinos AM. Stress effects on morphology and function of the hippocampus. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1997;821:271-84.
72. Kerr DS, Campbell LW, Applegate MD, Brodish A, Landfield PW. Chronic stress-induced acceleration of electrophysiologic and morphometric biomarkers of hippocampal aging. J Neurosci 1991;11:1316-24.
73. Kerr DS, Campbell LW, Thibault O, Landfield PW. Hippocampal glucocorticoid receptor activation enhances voltage-dependent Ca2+ conductances: relevance to brain aging. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1992;89:8527-31.
74. Choi DW. Calcium-mediated neurotoxicity: relationship to specific channel types and role in ischemic damage. Trends Neurosci 1988;11:465-9.
75. Mills LR, Kater SB. Neuron-specific and state-specific differences in calcium homeostasis regulate the generation and degeneration of neuronal architecture. Neuron 1990;4:149-63.
76. Mattson MP Calcium as sculptor and destroyer of neural circuitry. Exp Gerontol 1992;27:29-49.
77. Meaney MJ, Tannenbaum B, Francis D, et al. Early environmental programming; hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal responses to stress. Semin Neurosci 1994;6:247-59.
78. McEwen BS, Biron CA, Brunson KW, et al. The role of adrenocorticoids as modulators of immune function in health and disease: neural, endocrine and immune interactions. Brain Res Brain Res Rev 1997;23:79-113.
79. Dhabhar FS, Miller AH, Stein M, McEwen BS, Spencer RL. Diurnal and acute stress-induced changes in distribution of peripheral blood leukocyte subpopulations. Brain Behav Immun 1994;8:66-79.
80. Dhabhar FS, Miller AH, McEwen BS, Spencer RL. Effects of stress on immune cell distribution: dynamics and hormonal mechanisms. J Immunol 1995;154:5511-27.
81. Miller AH, Spencer RL, Hassett J, et al. Effects of selective type I and II adrenal steroid agonists on immune cell distribution. Endocrinology 1994;135:1934-44.
82. Herbert TB, Cohen S. Stress and immunity in humans: a meta-analytic review. Psychosom Med 1993;55:364-79.
83. Dhabhar FS. Stress-induced enhancement of antigen-specific cell-mediated immunity: the role of hormones and leukocyte trafficking. New York: Rockefeller University, 1996.
84. Dhabhar FS, McEwen BS. Stress-induced enhancement of antigen-specific cell-mediated immunity. J Immunol 1996;156:2608-15.
85. Dhabhar FS, Miller AH, McEwen BS, Spencer RL. Stress-induced changes in blood leukocyte distribution: role of adrenal steroid hormones. J Immunol 1996;157:1638-44.
86. Dhabhar FS, McEwen BS. Moderate stress enhances, and chronic stress suppresses, cell-mediated immunity in vivo. Soc Neurosci 1996;22:1350. abstract.
87. Cohen S, Tyrrell DAJ, Smith AP. Psychological stress and susceptibility to the common cold. N Engl J Med 1991;325:606-12.
88. Hadid R, Spinedi E, Giovambattista A, Chautard T, Gaillard RC. Decreased hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis response to neuroendocrine challenge under repeated endotoxemia. Neuroimmunomodulation 1996;3: 62-8.
89. Taylor SE, Repetti RL, Seeman T. Health psychology: what is an unhealthy environment and how does it get under the skin? Annu Rev Psychol 1997;48:411-47.
90. Lynch JW, Kaplan GA, Cohen RD, Tuomilehto J, Salonen JT. Do cardiovascular risk factors explain the relation between socioeconomic status, risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality, and acute myocardial infarction? Am J Epidemiol 1996;144:934-42.
91. Marmot MG, Smith GD, Stansfeld S, et al. Health inequalities among British civil servants: the Whitehall II study. Lancet 1991;337:1387-93.
92. Pickering TG, Devereux RB, James GD, et al. Environmental influences on blood pressure and the role of job strain. J Hypertens Suppl 1996; 14:5179-5185.
93. Melin B, Lundberg U, Soderlund J, Granqvist M. Psychological and physiological stress reactions of male and female assembly workers: a comparison between two different forms of work organization. J Organizat Psychol (in press).
94. Bobak M, Marmot M. East-West mortality divide and its potential explanations: proposed research agenda. BMJ 1996;312:421-5.
95. Larsson B, Seidell J, Svardsudd K, et al. Obesity, adipose tissue distribution and health in men - the study of men born in 1913. Appetite 1989;13:37-44.
96. Brunner EJ. The social and biological basis of cardiovascular disease in office workers. In: Blane D, Brunner EJ, Wilkinson RG, eds. Health and social organization. London: Routledge, 1996:272-313.
97. Cohen S, Kaplan JR, Cunnick JE, Manuck SB, Rabin BS. Chronic social stress, affiliation and cellular immune response in nonhuman primates. Psychol Sci 1992;3:301-4.
98. Cohen S, Doyle WJ, Skoner DP, Rabin BS, Gwaltney JM Jr. Social ties and susceptibility to the common cold. JAMA 1997;277:1940-4.
99. Redelmeier DA, Rozin P, Kahneman D. Understanding patients' decisions: cognitive and emotional perspectives. JAMA 1993;270:72-6.
100. Horwitz RI, Horwitz SM. Adherence to treatment and health outcomes. Arch Intern Med 1993;153:1863-8.
101. Seeman TE, McEwen BS. The impact of social environment characteristics on neuroendocrine regulation. Psychosom Med 1996;58:459-71.
102. Spiegel D, Bloom JR, Kraemer HC, Gottheil E. Effect of psychosocial treatment on survival of patients with metastatic breast cancer. Lancet 1989;2:888-91.
103. Richardson JL, Shelton DR, Krailo M, Levine AM. The effect of compliance with treatment on survival among patients with hematologic malignancies. J Clin Oncol 1990;8:356-64.
104. Fawzy FI, Fawzy NW, Hyun CS, et al. Malignant melanoma: effects of an early structured psychiatric intervention, coping, and affective state on recurrence and survival 6 years later. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1993;50:681-9.
105. Stern Y, Alexander GE, Prohovnik I, et al. Relationship between life-time occupation and parietal flow: implications for a reserve against Alzheimer's disease pathology. Neurology 1995;45:55-60.
106. Stern Y, Alexander GE, Prohovnik I, Mayeux R. Inverse relationship between education and parietotemporal perfusion deficit in Alzheimer's disease. Ann Neurol 1992;32:371-5.
107. Van Cauter E, Leproult R, Kupfer DJ. Effects of gender and age on the levels and circadian rhythmicity of plasma cortisol. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 1996;81:2468-73.
108. Handa RJ, Nunley KM, Lorens SA, Louie JP, McGivern RF, Bollnow MR. Androgen regulation of adrenocorticotropin and corticosterone secretion in the male rat following novelty and foot shock stressors. Physiol Behav 1994;55:117-24.
109. Juraska JM, Fitch JM, Henderson C, Rivers N. Sex differences in the dendritic branching of dentate granule cells following differential experience. Brain Res 1985;333:73-80.
110. Gould E, Westlind-Danielsson A, Frankfurt M, McEwen BS. Sex differences and thyroid hormone sensitivity of hippocampal pyramidal cells. J Neurosci 1990;10:996-1003.
111. Roof RL. The dentate gyrus is sexually dimorphic in prepubescent rats: testosterone plays a significant role. Brain Res 1993;610:148-51.
112. Kimura D. Sex differences in the brain. Sci Am 1992;267:118-25.
113. Mizoguchi K, Kunishita T, Chui DH, Tabira T. Stress induces neuronal death in the hippocampus of castrated rats. Neurosci Lett 1992;138: 157-60.