The presently available data about stress and its effects is too broad. That’s why this paper will focus on the effect of stress hormones in some brain areas, like limbic structures and the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis. In this way we will discuss how repetitive stress can change those areas, mainly by the effect on its two types of nuclear receptors, changing the basal activity of the amygdala, hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex, resulting in an increased hypothalamo-pituitaryadrenal axis function and impairing cognitive functions like memory. However, the exact mechanism by which these effects are produced is poorly understood. That is why one of the challenges for future research is to link the cellular changes with its behavioral effects in order to understand how it works in a living organism.
Publicación Oficial de la Sociedad Ecuatoriana de Neurología, de la Liga Ecuatoriana Contra la Epilepsia y de la Sociedad Iberoamericana de Enfermedad Cerebrovascular
