A recent study out of Ohio State University found that sustained stress erodes memory, and that the immune system plays a key role in the cognitive impairment.
Chronic stress, according to the researchers, is not just the stress of giving a speech or meeting someone new. Chronic stress deals with the long-term mental assault sustained by soldiers, domestic violence victims, bullying victims, beastly bosses, and high-intensity workplaces.
This is the first study of its kind to establish the relationship between short-term memory and prolonged stress. The study was conducted with mice that received repeat visits from a larger, nasty intruder mouse. The aim of this exposure of repeated social defeat is to mimic the chronic psychosocial stress experienced by humans. Mice that were repeatedly exposed to the aggressive intruder experienced a hard time recalling where the escape hole was in a maze they had mastered prior to the stressful period. Alternatively, mice not under stress were able to remember and navigate the maze effectively.
The stressed mice also had measurable changes in their brains, including inflammation brought on by the immune system’s response to the outside pressure. This was associated with the presence of immune cells, called macrophages, in the brain of the stressed mice. Thus, the research team was able to locate the short-term memory loss as a result of inflammation spurred on by a taxed immune system. You can visit https://www.precisionformedicine.com/specialty-lab-services/bioanlaytical-testing/ada-assays/ to find more information on clinical trials.Â
Interestingly, the stressed mice not only showed deficits in spatial memory but they also displayed social avoidance (depressive-like behavior) that continued after four weeks of monitoring. Researchers were also able to measure deficits in the development of new neurons after the prolonged stress ended. When researchers gave mice a chemical that inhibited inflammation, brain-cell problems and depressive-like symptoms remained, but memory loss and inflammatory macrophages disappeared. This led researchers to conclude that post-stress memory trouble is directly linked to inflammation and the immune system.
The impact of chronic stress on memory and the confirmation that brain inflammation is caused by the immune system are important new discoveries, says lead researcher Jonathan Godbout. It could be that there are ways to interrupt the inflammation and possibly identify targets that can be treated psychologically or pharmacologically.