Make Visible: Chronic Illness Explored9 Des 2024

#6 The Science of Stress: Exploring Brain Function, Inflammation, and Cognitive Health with Yale Prof. Amy Arnsten

Amy Arnsten, PhD, is a Professor of both Neuroscience and Psychology at Yale University, where she runs her own lab which studies and teaches about the brain’s higher cortical circuits and their molecular regulation.

In this week’s episode we discuss Prof. Arnsten’s recent paper published in Biological Psychiatry looking at the impact of stress (both physical and mental) and inflammation on the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain with implications in a range of conditions from depression and schizophrenia, to Alzheimer's and Long Covid.

Arnsten explains how she and her lab are able to observe the biological changes that take place in the brain when under chronic stress, or triggered by inflammation, which can lead to a primitive survival response: shutting down higher cognitive functions. This area of the brain is responsible for the regulation of our emotions, our mood and our behaviour. Changes in this region lead to the brain fog, memory issues and emotional dysregulation that is prevalent in these disorders.

And she talks us through the pathway of kynurenic acid production, levels of which are elevated in conditions such as Long Covid which inhibits neurotransmission. The understanding of this could lead to break-throughs in our diagnosis and treatment of such conditions. And Prof. Arnsten is already seeing promising potential with guanfacine, a compound that her lab developed for the treatment of ADHD (approved by the FDA in 2009). A combination of guanfacine, which strengthens connections in the prefrontal cortex, with the anti-inflammatory, antioxidant supplement NAC (N-acetyl cysteine) seems to show possible beneficial applications in Long Covid.

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