OBJECTIVE To determine if symptoms of posttraumatic stress, initially evaluated in the emergency department (ED) setting, persist over time. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Two urban, academic medical center EDs. PATIENTS Sixty-nine injured patients, aged 12 to 24 years, were assessed for acute posttraumatic stress symptoms at the time of their enrollment in an ongoing ED-based s...

Stress and recovery from stress significantly affect interactions between the central nervous system, endocrine pathways, and the immune system. However, the influence of acute stress on circulating immune-endocrine mediators in humans is not well known. Using a double-blind, randomized study design, we administered a CO2 stress test to n = 143 participants to identify the effects of acute stre...

OBJECTIVE The authors investigated acute stress disorder and later posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children and adolescents who had been involved in assaults or motor vehicle accidents. METHOD They interviewed 93 patients 10-16 years old who were seen in an emergency department for having been assaulted or involved in a motor vehicle accident within 4 weeks after the assault or accide...

Repeated exposure to psychostimulants induces a long-lasting enhancement of locomotor activity called behavioral sensitization, which is often reinforced by stress after drug withdrawal. The mechanisms underlying these phenomena remain elusive. Here we explored the effects of acute stress 3 or 14 days after the cessation of chronic cocaine treatment on the expression of locomotor sensitization ...

Stress-induced changes in functional brain connectivity have been linked to the etiology of stress-related disorders. Resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) is especially informative in characterizing the temporal trajectory of glucocorticoids during stress adaptation. Using the imaging Maastricht Acute Stress Test (iMAST), we induced acute stress in 39 healthy volunteers and monitored th...

Acute mental stress is a potent trigger of acute coronary syndromes. Catecholamine-induced hypercoagulability with acute stress contributes to thrombus growth after coronary plaque rupture. Melatonin may diminish catecholamine activity. We hypothesized that melatonin mitigates the acute procoagulant stress response and that this effect is accompanied by a decrease in the stress-induced catechol...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the present study was to compare response inhibition and cognitive appraisal in clients with acute stress disorder, clients with posttraumatic stress disorder, and normal individuals. METHOD This was a comparative study. The sample consisted of 40 clients with acute stress disorder, 40 patients with posttraumatic stress disorder, and 40 normal individuals from Mazanda...

It has been suggested that glucocorticoids released during stress might impair neuronal function by decreasing glucose uptake by hippocampal neurons. Previous work has demonstrated that glucose uptake is reduced in hippocampal and cerebral cortex slices 24 h after exposure to acute stress, while no effect was observed after repeated stress. Here, we report the effect of acute and repeated restr...

The prefrontal cortex (PFC), a region responsible for high-order cognitive functions, such as decision-making, attention and working memory, is highly influenced by stress and corticosteroid stress hormones. Recently it has been shown that acute stress affects PFC functions by potentiating glutamatergic transmission via a mechanism dependent on glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and its downstream ta...

BACKGROUND Although a clear negative influence of chronic exposure to stressful experiences has been repeatedly demonstrated, the outcome of acute stress on key brain regions has only just started to be elucidated. Although it has been proposed that acute stress may produce enhancement of brain plasticity and that antidepressants may prevent such changes, we still lack ultrastructural evidence ...