About this Research Topic
The fact that only a small part of the exposed individuals develops stress-related disorders, whether in the human population or in laboratory rodents, raises the hypothesis that most individuals are resilient to these adversities. This means that individuals do not react equally to stressful situations, indicating that there are important differences that determine vulnerability and resilience to stress.
As much as stress, resilience is a concept borrowed from the Physics and describes a biopsychosocial construct involving a variety of factors, from sex, age, levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, neuropeptide Y and oxytocin in emotion- and cognition-related brain areas, to active coping strategies, social support, stable social bonds and healthy lifestyles.
Importantly, the inter-related way whereby psychosocial factors increase the expression of biological ones creating stress resilience remains the most challenging issue in the understanding when and how these factors fail to protect the body against the negative consequences of stress. Therefore, resilience should be approached as a complex phenomenon, involving several aspects of the living organism, thereby enabling challenges and threats to be dealt with in an adaptive and positive way.
In this Research Topic, we will bring together studies and review papers that exemplify the richness and complexity of stress resilience, a phenomenon that has begun to be deeply investigated only in the past few years.
This Research Topic will include clinical and preclinical original studies, reviews and mini-reviews that bring knowledge on the biological, psychological and lifestyle factors that build resilience to stress.
Articles are expected to focus on how stress resilience is influenced by:
• Stress coping styles
• Neurotrophic factors
• Age
• Sex
• Physical exercise
• Nutrition
• Sleep
• Social bonding and social support
• Neuropeptide Y
• Oxytocin
• Neurotransmission
• Social-economic status
Keywords: Individual differences, stress vulnerability, social support, executive functions, coping strategies, neuropeptides, stress resilience
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.