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: 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. What's more, an animal study found that a single stressful event can destroy newly created neurons in the hippocampus. University of California at Berkeley researchers found that the brain in a state of chronic stress generates more myelin-producing cells and fewer neurons than a typical brain would, resulting in excess myelin (an insulating layer of protective coating around neurons) in the hippocampus. “The hippocampus is especially vulnerable to ongoing emotional distress, because of the damaging effects of cortisol," psychologist Daniel Goleman wrote in Social Intelligence. Stress can disrupt memory by triggering the brain's threat response
While cortisol hampers the activity of the hippocampus, it increases the size and activity of the amygdala, the brain's main center for emotional responses and motivation. The amygdala is responsible for fear processing, threat perception and the fight-or-flight response.