Stress weaken memory and learning

Changes in lifestyle have borne stress and incur damage to our various activities. Recently a group of researcher at the University of California, Irvine has found that stress can harm learning and memory in brain by impairing communication to brain cells.

The study showed that even stress which lasts for short duration can affect memory and learning other than the long lasting one.

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During stress communication is weaken in brain cell which in turn spoil the memory.

Tallie Z Baram, lead researcher said, “Stress is a constant in our lives and cannot be avoided. Our findings can play an important role in the development of drugs that might prevent these undesirable effects and offer insights into why some people are forgetful or have difficulty retaining information during stressful situations.”

The researchers found that it is Corticotrophin Releasing Hormone (CRH) which upset the process by which the brain collects and stores memories rather than cortisol which was earlier known to be affecting memories.

It is known that memory take place at synapse, which are junction between an axon and the next cell with which it communicates. These synapses are present on dendritic spines, Spiny dendritic has tens of thousands of spines, and so because each individual spine typically synapses with a reciprocal axon, a spiny dendrite receives a multitude of signals.

The study on rat’s brain cells showed that CRH molecules released from the brains primary learning and memory centre, hippocampus led to the rapid disintegration of these dendritic spines, which affect the ability of synapses to collect and store memories.

The researchers later found that by blocking CRH molecules interaction with their receptors purged stress damage to dendritic spines.

This study has again raised the need to manage stress as well as our lifestyle, as stress can leave a person feeling depleted or overwhelmed, weaken the body's immune system and can reason for strings of problem like anxiety, depression etc.