Preventing Mental Illness With a Stress Vaccine
Influenced by a school shooting, a neuroscientist is on a mission to change how both the brain and immune system handle stress.
.. when asked to circle half of the bunnies on a sheet of paper, she diligently circled the back half of each bunny.
.. Long-term stress is considered responsible for 60 percent of all human illness and disease
.. Analyzing the lives of children born to mothers who were pregnant during the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944, a famine that affected more than 4.5 million people, researchers found that prenatal exposure to extreme stress led to long-term cognitive and mental-health issues, as well as addiction. Prenatal stress exposure has since been linked with ADHD in children as old as 15 years, increased risk for autism, greater impulsivity in boys and girls, and poorer task performance in boys.
.. exposure during the second and third trimesters is linked with increased risk for depression, anxiety disorders, and bipolar disorder.
.. About 40 percent of the risk of depression is genetic, and stress is the most common trigger.