ArticleEuropean psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists2025
The association between recent stressful life events and brain structure: a UK Biobank longitudinal MRI study.
Article in European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Association Between Living Environment and Depression: The Mediating Role of Sleep Duration.Journal of prevention (2022) · 2026Article
- Differences in cortical gyrification and fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations between early- and late-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder.Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN · 2026Article
- The moderating effect of lifetime physical activity on brain alterations related to adverse childhood experiences.European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists · 2025Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundRecent stressful life events (SLEs) are an established risk factor for a range of psychiatric disorders. Animal studies have shown evidence of gray matter (GM) reductions associated with stress, and previous work has found similar associations in humans. However longitudinal studies investigating the association between stress and changes in brain structure are limited.
methodsThe current study uses longitudinal data from the UK Biobank and comprises 4,543 participants with structural neuroimaging and recent SLE data (mean age = 61.5 years). We analyzed the association between recent SLEs and changes in brain structure, determined using the longitudinal FreeSurfer pipeline, focusing on total GM volume and five a priori brain regions: the hippocampus, amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and insula. We also examined if depression and childhood adversity moderated the relationship between SLEs and brain structure.
resultsIndividuals who had experienced recent SLEs exhibited a slower rate of hippocampal decrease over time compared to individuals who did not report any SLEs. Individuals with depression exhibited smaller GM volumes when exposed to recent SLEs. There was no effect of childhood adversity on the relationship between SLEs and brain structure.
conclusionsOur findings suggest recent SLEs are not directly associated with an accelerated decline in brain volumes in a population sample of older adults, but instead may alter brain structure via affective disorder psychopathology. Further work is needed to investigate the effects of stress in younger populations who may be more vulnerable to stress-induced changes, and may yet pinpoint brain regions linked to stress-related disorders.
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