stress could have an impact on movements due to a reaction in the brain, researchers from the university of bonn in germany say.
research published in the journal translational psychiatry shows that after being exposed to stressful situations, lab mice were found to have lost some neuron contacts in their brains and had developed motor deficits.
chronically stressed people can develop abnormalities in their fine motor skills, the researchers say, but how these symptoms first develop has not yet been studied in depth.
using a special microscopy method — essentially a special way to view the mice’s brains — scientists could see that there were fewer connections than normal in those under stress.
“with our method, it is possible to observe one and the same neuron at different points in time,” anne-katherin gellner, lead author on the study, said in a
statement
. “we can therefore see whether, and how, it changes as a result of stress.”
could we diagnose stress-related diseases sooner?
researchers say the discovery could be useful for earlier diagnosis of stress-related diseases, such as depression, as well as developing new treatment options. the results also document that stress can, in fact, leave both temporary and permanent traces of damage in the brain. when the synapses — nerve cells connecting with other nerve cells that usually happens during learning — were compared before and after stress,
the ‘before’ images almost resemble a tree with many synapses branching out, while the ‘after’ photos look more like a twig.