On The Daily Circuit Thursday, we're talking about brains. We've
got three pieces of new research looking at how the brain works
and how it changes due to life events. STRESS ON THE BRAIN A
recent study from Yale University shows stress is affecting our
health even more drastically than once imagined. Researchers
have found that the hormones released during stress cause our
brain to shrink. According to Yale News: The team conducted
magnetic resonance imaging scans of 103 healthy subjects who had
been interviewed about traumatic stress and adverse life events,
such as the death of a loved one, loss of a home to natural
disaster, job loss or divorce. They found that even the brains
of subjects who had only recently experienced a stressful life
event showed markedly lower gray matter in portions of the
medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that regulates
not only emotions and self-control, but physiological functions
such as blood pressure and glucose levels. Dr. Apostolos
Georgopoulos, director of the