Root of resilience under stress

摘要

Some individuals react coolly to stressful events, whereas others slip into depression Work in mice suggests that chemical modifications to the DNA may explain the difference. Shusaku Uchida and Yoshifumi Watanabe at Yamaguchi University in Japan and their colleagues subjected two genetically distinct strains of mice to chronic stress and then measured various proteins involved in neuronal growth and maintenance. The strain known to succumb to stress had lower than normal levels of a protein called GDNF in the brains striatum. The resilient strain had higher amounts.