What impact does stress have on the growing brain?

Question

What impact does stress have on the growing brain?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Stress gets your level of cortisol high (stress hormone), short burst of this are useful for survival, learning to identify potential threats and so on. Chronic stress keep this hormone high, and it has detrimental effects. In the brain, it reduces the growth of new neurons in hipoccampus affecting memory, affects the prefrontal cortex (which control executive function) and affects negatively other neural pathways, which can lead to depression and anxiety.

In the growing brain, it’s basically the same, it can lead to mental health problems and affects learning.