Title: How Stress Changes The Brain | HuffPost Life
Headings: How Stress Changes The Brain
How Stress Changes The Brain
Here are four ways stress changes your brain.
Stress could trigger a chemical change that makes you irritable
Chronic stress can shrink your brain
One stressful event can kill brain cells
Stress can disrupt memory by triggering the brain's threat response
10 Scary Effects Of Stress

Content: Under pressure, many people get distracted and forgetful and this could be a sign of the destructive effects of stress in the brain. French researchers discovered an enzyme, when triggered by stress, that attacks a molecule in the hippocampus which is responsible for regulating synapses. When the synapses are modified, fewer neural connections are able to be made in the area. "These effects lead subjects to lose their sociability, avoid interactions with their peers and have impaired memory or understanding," a university press release explained. Chronic stress can shrink your brain
Stressful life events could harm your brain's memory and learning capacity by reducing the volume of gray matter in brain regions associated with emotions, self-control and physiological functions. Chronic stress and/or depression can contribute to lost volume in the brain's medial prefrontal cortex, which is associated with emotional and cognitive impairment. Researchers found that this is particularly true of people with a genetic marker that can disrupt the formation of synaptic connections between brain cells. A 2008 study on mice found that even short-term stress could lead to communication problems among brain cells in regions associated with memory and learning. One stressful event can kill brain cells
As we learn new information, we constantly generate new neurons in the hippocampus -- a brain region associated with learning, memory and emotion. But ongoing stress can halt the production of new neurons in the hippocampus and may also affect the speed of connections between hippocampal cells, according to Scientific American.