Review

Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10, 446-457 (June 2009) | doi:10.1038/nrn2649

Focus on: Stress

Psychobiology and molecular genetics of resilience

Adriana Feder1, Eric J. Nestler2 & Dennis S. Charney2  About the authors

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Every individual experiences stressful life events. In some cases acute or chronic stress leads to depression and other psychiatric disorders, but most people are resilient to such effects. Recent research has begun to identify the environmental, genetic, epigenetic and neural mechanisms that underlie resilience, and has shown that resilience is mediated by adaptive changes in several neural circuits involving numerous neurotransmitter and molecular pathways. These changes shape the functioning of the neural circuits that regulate reward, fear, emotion reactivity and social behaviour, which together are thought to mediate successful coping with stress.

Author affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York 10029, USA.
  2. Departments of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York 10029, USA.

Correspondence to: Email: adriana.feder@mssm.edu

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