Previous work has implicated the forebrain glucocorticoid receptor (GR) in feedback regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis. The present series of experiments used male mice with a targeted forebrain-specific GR knockout (in which forebrain includes the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and basolateral amygdala) to determine the role of forebrain GR in HPA axis regulati...

Diabetes mellitus exerts metabolic stress on cells and it provokes a chronic increase in the long-term activity of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, perhaps thereby contributing to insulin resistance. GLP-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonists are pleiotropic hormones that not only affect glycaemic and metabolic control, but they also produce many other effects including activation of...

OBJECTIVE This review aimed to present an overview of neurobiological research on the etiology of burnout and to evaluate the proposed arguments. METHOD A retrospective literature review of the relevant studies conducted within the last 17 years. For this purpose a literature search was conducted via internet-based search engines, including PubMed, Science-Direct, Medline, GoogleScholar, ULAK...

The hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal (HPG) axis systems are inversely related in humans and animals. Although livestock animals, such as sheep (Ovis aries), tend to be well adapted to their environment, it is known that the livestock production processes subject animals to a multitude of physical and psychological stressful stimuli that have the p...

Early life stress may precipitate psychopathology, at least in part, by influencing amygdala function. Converging evidence across species suggests that links between childhood stress and amygdala function may be dependent upon hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis function. Using data from college-attending non-Hispanic European-Americans (n=308) who completed the Duke Neurogenetics Study, ...

Overexposure of the developing fetus to glucocorticoids is hypothesised to be one of the key mechanisms linking early life development with later life disease. The maternal hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis undergoes dramatic changes during pregnancy and postpartum. Although cortisol levels rise threefold by the third trimester, the fetus is partially protected from high cortisol by act...

The endocannabinoid system affects the neuroendocrine regulation of hormone secretion, including the activity of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. However, the mechanisms by which endocannabinoids regulate HPA axis function have remained unclear. Here we demonstrate that mice lacking cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1-/-) display a significant dysregulation of the HPA axis. Although ...

Temporal organization is an important feature of biological systems and its main function is to facilitate adaptation of the organism to the environment. The daily variation of biological variables arises from an internal time-keeping system. The major action of the environment is to synchronize the internal clock to a period of exactly 24 h. The light-dark cycle, food ingestion, barometric pre...

Regulation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis activity by stress is a fundamental survival mechanism and HPA-dysfunction is implicated in psychiatric disorders. Adverse early life experiences, e.g. poor maternal care, negatively influence brain development and programs an abnormal stress response by encoding long-lasting molecular changes, which may extend to the next generatio...

Prenatal programming of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity has long term implications for offspring health. Biological mechanisms underlying programming of the offspring HPA axis are poorly understood. We hypothesised that altered maternal metabolism including higher maternal obesity, glucose and lipids are novel programming factors for altered offspring HPA axis activity. Saliv...