Stress Changes Adolescent Brain

Severe stress can permanently affect an adolescent's brain, causing changes in an area important for learning and memory, U.S. researchers reported.

The study, conducted using rats, suggests that teens may not always bounce back from trauma and suggests that adolescents may be more susceptible to permanent damage from stress than younger children.

Susan Andersen of Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts and colleagues found that rats exposed to stress during adolescence -- by being kept alone in cages -- had lower levels as adults of a key protein in the hippocampus, a brain region important for learning and memory.

The protein, synaptophysin, is used to measure how many brain cell connections are being made. Lower levels suggest reduced brain activity.

Andersen's team told a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans that their study was the first to show that stress during adolescence affects adult brain cell connections.

Usually, in humans, synaptophysin levels peak between the ages of 18 and 20. Anderson's team tested rats of comparable age.

The rats kept alone -- something very stressful for a rat -- did not experience the normal increase in synaptophysin as they reached early maturity.

"These data may suggest why early traumatic stress, such as physical or sexual abuse or neglect, is associated with a decrease in the size of the hippocampus in adulthood," McLean Hospital said in a statement.

"These pre-clinical data suggest that stress experienced early in life alters the normal developmental trajectory of the hippocampus, but that these changes are not apparent until later in life," said Andersen.

Reference Source 89

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