Under conditions of exposure to chronic stress, especially to unpredictable psyc
ID: 3498438 • Letter: U
Question
Under conditions of exposure to chronic stress, especially to unpredictable psychosocial stressors, humans have a hard time “turning off” the neurohormonal stress response. How do differences in social status and position in a social hierarchy, along with the psychological factors associated with perceived control of stress experiences, influence this dysregulation of the stress axis response. How does the dysregulated stress axis affect susceptibility to disease, neuropsychiatric disorders, or adverse brain changes? How might these differences in stress axis dysregulation account for the significant health disparities between high vs. low socio-economic groups?
Explanation / Answer
Some humans have hard time turning off the neurohormonal stress response when faced with sociological stress instigators, while some don't. Individual variations in the vulnerability to fight or flight the stress can be well explained by The Diathesis Stress Model. This model explains how social status and hierarchy(an environmental stress) when interacts with biological predisposition factors, leads to psychological burnout and acute disorders.Some people are prone to developing psychological disorders in response to a stressful event because they have an underlying predisposition to the disease. This vulnerability can either be biological or genetic and when combined with environment induced stress, it can trigger a psychological disease in a person. The more tvulnerable an individual is and lower his threshold, less intensity of stress is needed to trigger a psychological deviation within him. This is how differences in stress axis deregulation can account for significant disparity between various stress inducing environmental condition (socio-economic condition in this case).
Social status has an immense effect on the stress level of a person. Those who have witnessed struggle and economic hardships in their childhood are more prone to illness . This state of lack creates a feeling of helplessness(a major symptom of depression) and low sense of self worth. Brice McEven, a neuroscientist in University of Rockerfella in New York, concluded through his research that an individual low in social status and hierarchy and high on stress vulnerability, has an altered immune system and is more prone to infection. This also leads to multiple changes in the brain activities. For example, during stress the brain produces low level of seretonin which is responsible for depression.
In summary, an individual's vulnerability and his biological predispositions when combined with environment(stress inducing agent) can result in development of an acute psychological disorder. This is reflective in people who belong to lower economic strata and are deviod of abundance.
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