An Assessment of Early Adolescent Stress Factors

Genetic predisposition and environmental stress are known etiologies of stress-related psychiatric disorders. Environmental stress during adolescence is assumed to be particularly detrimental for adult affective behaviors. To investigate how genetic stress-reactivity differences modify the effects of stress during adolescence on adult affective behaviors we employed two inbred strains with differing stress reactivity. The Wistar Kyoto More Immobile (WMI) rat strain show increased stress-reactivity and despair-like behaviors as well as passive coping compared to the nearly isogenic control strain, the Wistar Kyoto Less Immobile (WLI). Males and females of these strains were exposed to contextual fear conditioning (CFC) during early adolescence (EA), between 32 and 34 postnatal days (PND), and were tested for the consequences of this mild EA stress in adulthood. Early adolescent stress significantly decreased anxiety-like behavior, measured in the open field test (OFT) and increased social interaction and recognition in adult males of both strains compared to controls. In contrast, no significant effects of EA stress were observed in adult females in these behaviors. Both males and females of the genetically less stress-reactive WLI strain showed significantly increased immobility in the forced swim test (FST) after EA stress compared to controls. In contrast, immobility was significantly attenuated by EA stress in adult WMI females compared to controls. Transcriptomic changes of the glucocorticoid receptor (Nr3c1, GR) and the brain-derived neurotrophic factor (Bdnf) illuminate primarily strain and stress-dependent changes, respectively, in the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus of adults. These results suggest that contrary to expectations, limited adolescent stress is beneficial to males thru decreasing anxiety and enhancing social behaviors, and to the stress more-reactive WMI females by way of decreasing passive coping.

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STRESS AMONG EARLY ADOLESCENTS AND MATERNAL AND TEACHERS ROLE PERCEPTION IN ADDRESSING ADOLESCENTS' STRESS IN SELECTED SCHOOLS OF THIRUVANANTHAPURAM

Journal of Health and Allied Sciences NU ◽

10.1055/s-0040-1709750 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 05 (01) ◽

pp. 058-061

Author(s):

Aswathy K L. ◽

Kasturi R A. ◽

Maxie A.

Keyword(s):

High Stress ◽

Early Adolescents ◽

Study Finding ◽

Early Adolescent ◽

Second Phase ◽

Role Perception ◽

Adolescent Stress ◽

Two Phases ◽

Quantitative Descriptive ◽

Descriptive Survey

Abstract Objective: The objectives of the study were to assess the stress of early adolescents and to describe the role perceptions of mothers and teachers in addressing adolescent stress. Materials and Methods: This quantitative descriptive survey was conducted in two phases in Thiruvananthapuram district, Kerala. Data were collected from early adolescent children (959), their teachers (61) and mothers (136). In the first phase, level of stress and source of stress among early adolescent children and teachers' role perception in addressing adolescent stress were measured. In the second phase, role perception in addressing their adolescent's stress was assessed among mothers of adolescents with high stress. Result: A total of 97 (10.1%) adolescents had severe stress. Majority of adolescents have cited mothers' and fathers' parenting role as their major stressor (56.5% and 53.5% respectively). Mothers reported that over watching of television is a major cause of lack of interest in studies and that is the main reason for stress at home. 37.7% of the teachers felt that school is giving a lot of academic stress to the child. Conclusion: The study finding calls for collective actions of student-teacher-parent associations to reduce stress of adolescents.

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