Research Hit: Stress Changes Brain’s Sound Responses

New research shows that chronic stress changes brain responses to low level sounds

Isn’t stress a whole brain response?

Well, yes, kind of. That it alters multiple pathways is well-known and researched. But all brain responses change multiple pathways and understanding these, what precisely and how they are triggered is important. And this research adds another little twist to the stress brain response.

Also of note is that this is in chronic stress situations not acute short-term stress.

So, what changed to sound?

Dr. Jennifer Resnik from Ben-Gurion of the Negev has been researching whether stress impacts basic brain functions apart from the obvious emotional responses that have been well documented.

With a team around Ghattas Bisharat, lead author, they observed brain responses in chronically stressed mice to simple sounds.

They found that the brain’s responses to low level sounds was much reduced but it kept its sensitivity to loud sounds.

Oh, that is interesting and explains a lot.

Yes, it can shift everyday perception of “normal” sounds to only responding to excessive sounds. If we translated…