See Cheryl R Z, Tan Annabel X, Valmaggia Lucia R, Kempton Matthew J
Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Eur Psychiatry. 2025 Jan 21;68(1):e18. doi: 10.1192/j.eurpsy.2025.2.
Recent stressful life events (SLEs) are an established risk factor for a range of psychiatric disorders. Animal studies have shown evidence of gray matter (GM) reductions associated with stress, and previous work has found similar associations in humans. However longitudinal studies investigating the association between stress and changes in brain structure are limited.
The current study uses longitudinal data from the UK Biobank and comprises 4,543 participants with structural neuroimaging and recent SLE data (mean age = 61.5 years). We analyzed the association between recent SLEs and changes in brain structure, determined using the longitudinal FreeSurfer pipeline, focusing on total GM volume and five a priori brain regions: the hippocampus, amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and insula. We also examined if depression and childhood adversity moderated the relationship between SLEs and brain structure.
Individuals who had experienced recent SLEs exhibited a slower rate of hippocampal decrease over time compared to individuals who did not report any SLEs. Individuals with depression exhibited smaller GM volumes when exposed to recent SLEs. There was no effect of childhood adversity on the relationship between SLEs and brain structure.
Our findings suggest recent SLEs are not directly associated with an accelerated decline in brain volumes in a population sample of older adults, but instead may alter brain structure via affective disorder psychopathology. Further work is needed to investigate the effects of stress in younger populations who may be more vulnerable to stress-induced changes, and may yet pinpoint brain regions linked to stress-related disorders.
近期的应激性生活事件（SLEs）是一系列精神疾病的既定风险因素。动物研究已显示出与应激相关的灰质（GM）减少的证据，先前的研究也在人类中发现了类似的关联。然而，调查应激与脑结构变化之间关联的纵向研究有限。
本研究使用了英国生物银行的纵向数据，包括4543名有结构神经影像学数据和近期SLE数据的参与者（平均年龄 = 61.5岁）。我们分析了近期SLEs与脑结构变化之间的关联，使用纵向FreeSurfer管道确定，重点关注总GM体积和五个先验脑区：海马体、杏仁核、前扣带回皮质、眶额皮质和脑岛。我们还研究了抑郁和童年逆境是否调节了SLEs与脑结构之间的关系。
与未报告任何SLEs的个体相比，经历过近期SLEs的个体海马体随时间的减少速度较慢。患有抑郁症的个体在暴露于近期SLEs时GM体积较小。童年逆境对SLEs与脑结构之间的关系没有影响。
我们的研究结果表明，在老年人群样本中，近期SLEs与脑容量加速下降没有直接关联，而是可能通过情感障碍精神病理学改变脑结构。需要进一步的研究来调查压力对可能更容易受到压力诱导变化影响的年轻人群的影响，并可能确定与压力相关疾病相关的脑区。
