This is one of four videos produced for the 2018 BTA conference entitled The Hidden Life of Families. Dr. Michael Lumpkin presents on the neuroendocrine system and the stress response system in this video. The title is “Homeostasis Undone: When Stress Causes the Family and Neuro-Endocrine Immune System Triangles to Push each other into Dysfunction.”
Dr. Lumpkin, who is a neuroendocrine physiologist, describes the functioning of the stress response system, and its impact on body and brain. The lecture provides the viewer an understanding of the connection between the stress response and behavioral reactions to a stressor as well as to disease. He describes the underpinning of the biological system.
Dr. Michael Lumpkin talks about the body as a system. Each system in the body influences and interacts with the other. The stress response is integrated with the biological system, with each part of the system impacting the other in a back-and-forth movement. A disturbance in one part of system impacts the other. There is a reciprocal functioning between the central nervous system, the endocrine system and the immune system. Dr. Lumpkin draws parallels between the family emotional system and the concept of triangles and the stress response system and how each part of the system impacts the other.
Dr. Lumpkin provides diagrams of the stress response system and how hormones travel and interact with the overall body. The hypothalamus is the “integrative center of the brain.” Because the hypothalamus is exposed to blood, it receives messages from the brain as well as hormones in other parts of the body including the gland hormones and glucose. He describes the neurobiology of how hormones activate and communicate to parts of the brain starting with the hypothalamus. Hormones are triggered to activate the body response to stress, then physiological systems calm down the system after the stress. Hormones are critical to communication messages to the various parts of the system either in increasing activity or toning it down. He focuses on the activities of the cortical releasing hormone (CRH), cortisol, and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH). He discusses how they function to activate the system to respond to a stressor for purposes of survival or function for a task, also how the neuroendocrine immune system acts to tone down the response and allows the parasympathetic nervous system to take over.
Two types of stress responses are described: acute and chronic stress. Acute stress responses are important to the healthy functioning of individuals and managing life challenges. Acute stressors are important to manage in terms of survival. After an acute stressor the body returns to a normal heathy state.
Chronic stress is ongoing stress in which the homeostasis of the body is disturbed, and it is associated with symptoms. Chronic stress initiates the same mechanisms as acute stress but does not dissipate the activity in the neuroendocrine immune system. Based on research studies, Dr. Lumpkin describes how chronic stress is linked to numerous symptoms including depression and anxiety. For example, in research studies with animals, depression-like symptoms can occur under chronic stress. When the stress response is chronic, and the neuroendocrine immune system is continually disturbed, physical, and emotional symptoms may occur. The viewer of this video will gain a better understanding of the link between the disease state, the family emotional system, and the stress response.
Viewers interested in systems biology, symptom development, the stress response system, and the neuroendocrine immune system, will be interested in this video.
