Allostasis and neuroprogression in major psychiatric disorders

2019 ◽  
pp. 5-20
Author(s):  
Iria Grande ◽  
Flávio Kapczinski ◽  
Sebastián Camino ◽  
Gustavo Vázquez ◽  
Eduard Vieta
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Affective Disorders ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Unipolar Depression ◽  
Progressive Increase ◽  
The Body ◽  
Accelerated Ageing ◽  
Psychiatric Illnesses ◽  
Wear And Tear ◽  
The Brain

The hypothesis of allostasis may be a pertinent model to explain the course of psychiatric illnesses by means of stress and to explain the dimensional impact of mental disorders on the organism, not only on the brain but on other organs of the body. Moreover, it is also suitable to explain the neuroprogression of psychiatric disorders from a ‘wear and tear’ approach, detailing the progressive increase of cognitive impairment, accelerated ageing, and rates of medical and psychiatric comorbidities that patients with major psychiatric disorders have. In this chapter, the concepts of allostasis, allostatic load, and allostatic overload are detailed from a neuroprogressive approach and their application to neuropsychiatric illnesses is explained in relation to anxiety disorders, affective disorders, such as unipolar depression and bipolar disorder, and psychotic syndromes.

Basic mechanisms of, and treatment targets for, stress-related disorders

2020 ◽  
pp. 829-839
Author(s):  
Bruce S. McEwen
Keyword(s):  
Early Life ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wear And Tear ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Social And Physical Environment ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Brain

The response to the social and physical environment involves two-way communication between the brain and the body and epigenetic adaptation (‘allostasis’) via mediators of the cardiovascular, immune, metabolic, neuroendocrine, and neural mechanisms. Chronic stress causes wear and tear on the brain and body (‘allostatic load and overload’), reflecting also the impact of health-damaging behaviours and lasting effects of early life experiences interacting with genetic predispositions. Hormonal and other mediators of allostasis promote adaptation in the short run but cause allostatic load/overload when they are overused or dysregulated. The brain is key because it determines what is threatening and the physiological and behavioural responses, while showing structural remodelling that affects its function. Besides pharmaceuticals, there are ‘top–down’ interventions, like physical activity, that engage ‘the wisdom of the body’ to change itself, as well as the impact of policies of government and business that encourage individuals to manage their own lives and promote increased ‘healthspan’.

scholarly journals Depressed mothers and their offspring differ in terms of health risk profiles and allostatic load

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Health Risk ◽  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Chronic Stress ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
The Body ◽  
Risk Profiles ◽  
Wear And Tear ◽  
Depressed Mothers

Allostatic load is essentially the “wear and tear” that accumulates in the body in individuals exposed to chronic stress. Because some patients with psychiatric disorders have a shorter lifespan than their healthy counterparts,1 some researchers have suggested that there might be a link between disorders such as depression and increased allostatic load.

scholarly journals Life Course Predictors of Allostatic Load Among LGBTQ Older Adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 735-735
Author(s):  
Charles Hoy-Ellis ◽  
Hyun Kim ◽  
Karen Fredriksen Goldsen
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Identity Management ◽  
The Body ◽  
Linear Regression Models ◽  
Psychophysiological Stress ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Wear And Tear

Abstract LGBTQ older adults are at significantly increased risk for poor mental and physical health, likely consequential to lifelong bias. Allostatic load (AL), the net effect of “wear and tear” on the body resulting from repeated, chronic over-activation of the psychophysiological stress response system. Utilizing the Health Equity Promotion Model, the aim of this study was to test potential life course predictors of AL, including interpersonal violence, legal marriage, and identity management in a sample of LGBTQ adults 50 to 97 years of age (n=317). Results from a series of hierarchical linear regression models showed that adult physical abuse and late identity disclosure for those who had been in an opposite-sex marriage predicted higher AL in this sample of LGBTQ older adults, indicating need for increased research on bias over the life course as contributory to AL and biopsychosocial dysfunction among LGBTQ older adults.

Environments, Past and Present

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Duckworth ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Acute Stress ◽  
The Body ◽  
Physiological Changes ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
Flight Response ◽  
Fight Or Flight Response ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Fight Or Flight

For more than a century, scientists have known that acute stress activates the fight-or-flight response. When your life is on the line, your body reacts instantly: your heart races, your breath quickens, and a cascade of hormones sets off physiological changes that collectively improve your odds of survival. More recently, scientists have come to understand that the fight-or-flight response takes a toll on the brain and the body—particularly when stress is chronic rather than acute. Systems designed to handle transient threats also react to stress that occurs again and again, for weeks, months, or years. It turns out that poverty, abuse, and other forms of adversity repeatedly activate the fight-or-flight response, leading to long-term effects on the immune system and brain, which in turn increase the risk for an array of illnesses, including asthma, diabetes, arthritis, depression, and cardiovascular disease. Pioneering neuroscientist Bruce McEwen called this burden of chronic stress “allostatic load.”

scholarly journals The impact of racially-motivated housing discrimination on allostatic load among Indigenous university students

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Currie ◽  
Takara A. Motz ◽  
Jennifer L Copeland
Keyword(s):  
Immune System ◽  
University Students ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
The Body ◽  
Linear Regression Models ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Housing Discrimination ◽  
The Past ◽  
Wear And Tear ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Background Allostatic load (AL) is an aggregate measure of wear and tear on the body due to the chronic activation of the stress response system. The goal of this study was to examine the association between racially-motivated housing discrimination and AL score within a sample of Indigenous university students.Methods Data for this cross-sectional study were collected from Indigenous adults attending university in a small city in western Canada between 2015 and 2017 ( N = 104; Mean age = 27.8 years). An item adapted from the Experience of Discrimination Scale was to assess racially-motivated housing discrimination in the past 12 months. AL was measured as a composite of 7 biomarkers assessing neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune system function. Bias-corrected and accelerated bootstrapped linear regression models were used to examine associations adjusting for age, income, parenthood, and other situations in which discrimination had been experienced.Results Indigenous university students who experienced racially-motivated housing discrimination in the past year (16.8% of the sample) had an average AL score of approximately 4, which was almost double that of their peers who had not. In an adjusted model. racially-motivated housing discrimination was associated with a-1.5 point increase in AL score. This model explained 35% of the adjusted variance in AL score, of which racially-motivated housing discrimination explained 24% ( R 2 Change = 0.24, F Change = 32.52, Sig. F Change p <0.001).Conclusions Indigenous adults who experienced racially-motivated housing discrimination in the past year had early and more pronounced wear and tear on neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune system functioning in young and middle adulthood than Indigenous peers who did not. These findings combine with others to highlight the need for increased efforts to prevent racially-motivated housing discrimination in urban centres.

scholarly journals A Longitudinal Study of Allostatic Load in Later Life: The Role of Sex, Birth Cohorts, and Risk Accumulation

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 419-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioana van Deurzen ◽  
Bram Vanhoutte
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Later Life ◽  
The Body ◽  
Life Course Perspective ◽  
Birth Cohorts ◽  
Wear And Tear ◽  
The Life Course

Are challenging life courses associated with more wear and tear on the biological level? This study investigates this question from a life-course perspective by examining the influence of life-course risk accumulation on allostatic load (AL), considering the role of sex and birth cohorts. Using biomarker data collected over three waves (2004, 2008, and 2012) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing ( N = 3,824) in a growth curve framework, AL trajectories over a period of 8 years are investigated. Our results illustrate that AL increases substantially in later life. Men have higher AL than women, but increases are similar for both sexes. Older cohorts have both higher levels and a steeper increase of AL over time. Higher risk accumulation over the life course goes hand in hand with higher AL levels and steeper trajectories, contributing to the body of evidence on cumulative (dis)advantage processes in later life.

Inequity Embodied

2019 ◽  
pp. 24-41
Author(s):  
Tyan Parker Dominguez
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
The Body ◽  
Medical Risk ◽  
Lower Socioeconomic ◽  
Wear And Tear ◽  
Increasing Risk ◽  
Adverse Pregnancy ◽  
Traditional Risk Factors ◽  
Stress Burden

This chapter examines African American women’s disproportionate risk of low birth weight, preterm delivery, and infant and maternal mortality, and the ways in which race, gender, and class oppression create a unique matrix of stress burden that increases allostatic load (i.e., weathering or wear and tear on the body), thereby increasing risk for these adverse pregnancy-related outcomes. The chapter describes how traditional risk factors, such as health behavior, medical risk, and lower socioeconomic status, do not account for racial disparities in childbearing health, and it utilizes a stress paradigm for explaining how the intersectional burden of race, gender, and class inequity can affect African American pregnancy women. The chapter concludes by noting several mobilization efforts that are underway to eliminate health disparities in adverse birth outcomes by promoting health equity that is fair and just opportunities to be healthy.

scholarly journals Can Biological Markers Partially Explain the Link Between the Social Environment and Oral Health?

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 10-15
Author(s):  
Cristina Barboza Solís MSc, PhD
Keyword(s):  
Oral Health ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Biological Markers ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Public Health Research ◽  
The Body ◽  
Adult Health ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wear And Tear ◽  
New Perspective

Understanding how the social world affects humans´ health by “getting under the skin” and penetrating the cells, organs and physiological systems of the body is a key tenet in public health research. Here, we propose the idea that socioeconomic position (SEP) can be biologically embodied, potentially leading to the production of health inequalities in oral health across population groups. Recent studies show that being exposed to chronic stress across the life course could impact our health. Allostatic load (AL) is a composite biological measure of overall physiological wear-and-tear that could allow a better understanding of the potential biological pathways playing a role in the construction of the social gradient in adult health. However, to use biological measures to better understand the mechanisms that construct health inequalities in oral health has not been tested systematically. The purposes of this New Perspective is to discuss the value of using composite biological markers, such as AL, to analyze oral health. This can allow a better understanding of the mechanisms leading to health inequalities in oral health, and add some valuable information for implementing health interventions.

Recombinant DNA and the major psychiatric disorders

1989 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-99
Author(s):  
Michael Gill
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Affective Disorders ◽  
Recombinant Dna ◽  
Psychiatric Illnesses ◽  
Recombinant Dna Techniques

AbstractThe two major psychiatric disorders, schizophrenia and the major affective disorders are among the most common genetic conditions in man. The precise biochemical defects which cause these disorders are unknown. This article reviews the new recombinant DNA techniques and their application to date in attempting to locate the genes responsible for these disorders. As has been demonstrated for other genetic conditions, these techniques may help to elucidate the biochemical defects which lead to the development of the more genetic forms of these psychiatric illnesses.

Hippocampal toxicity of metal base nanoparticles. Is there a relationship between nanoparticles and psychiatric disorders?

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abbas Mohammadipour ◽  
Mahmoud Abudayyak
Keyword(s):  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Hippocampal Neurogenesis ◽  
The Body ◽  
Metal Base ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Present Information ◽  
Gene Expression Alteration ◽  
Neuro Inflammation ◽  
The One ◽  
The Brain

Abstract Metal base nanoparticles are widely produced all over the world and used in many fields and products such as medicine, electronics, cosmetics, paints, ceramics, toys, kitchen utensils and toothpastes. They are able to enter the body through digestive, respiratory, and alimentary systems. These nanoparticles can also cross the blood brain barrier, enter the brain and aggregate in the hippocampus. After entering the hippocampus, they induce oxidative stress, neuro-inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and gene expression alteration in hippocampal cells, which finally lead to neuronal apoptosis. Metal base nanoparticles can also affect hippocampal neurogenesis and synaptic plasticity that both of them play crucial role in memory and learning. On the one hand, hippocampal cells are severely vulnerable due to their high metabolic activity, and on the other hand, metal base nanoparticles have high potential to damage hippocampus through variety of mechanisms and affect its functions. This review discusses, in detail, nanoparticles’ detrimental effects on the hippocampus in cellular, molecular and functional levels to reveal that according to the present information, which types of nanoparticles have more potential to induce hippocampal toxicity and psychiatric disorders and which types should be more evaluated in the future studies.

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