CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 1,097Stress Responses and CortisolEvolutionary Psychology and Human BehaviorAnimal Behavior and Reproduction

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 475 of the 480 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The Darwinian concept of stress: benefits of allostasis and costs of allostatic load and the trade-offs in health and disease

Open access
Korte, S. Mechiel, Koolhaas, Jaap M., Wingfield, John C., McEwen, Bruce S.·2005·Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
DOI 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2004.08.009
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Why do we get the stress-related diseases we do? Why do some people have flare ups of autoimmune disease, whereas others suffer from melancholic depression during a stressful period in their life? In the present review possible explanations will be given by using different levels of analysis. First, we explain in evolutionary terms why different organisms adopt different behavioral strategies to cope with stress. It has become clear that natural selection maintains a balance of different traits preserving genes for high aggression (Hawks) and low aggression (Doves) within a population. The existence of these personality types (Hawks-Doves) is widespread in the animal kingdom, not only between males and females but also within the same gender across species. Second, proximate (causal) explanations are given for the different stress responses and how they work. Hawks and Doves differ in underlying physiology and these differences are associated with their respective behavioral strategies; for example, bold Hawks preferentially adopt the fight-flight response when establishing a new territory or defending an existing territory, while cautious Doves show the freeze-hide response to adapt to threats in their environment. Thus, adaptive processes that actively maintain stability through change (allostasis) depend on the personality type and the associated stress responses. Third, we describe how the expression of the various stress responses can result in specific benefits to the organism. Fourth, we discuss how the benefits of allostasis and the costs of adaptation (allostatic load) lead to different trade-offs in health and disease, thereby reinforcing a Darwinian concept of stress. Collectively, this provides some explanation of why individuals may differ in their vulnerability to different stress-related diseases and how this relates to the range of personality types, especially aggressive Hawks and non-aggressive Doves in a population. A conceptual framework is presented showing that Hawks, due to inefficient management of mediators of allostasis, are more likely to be violent, to develop impulse control disorders, hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias, sudden death, atypical depression, chronic fatigue states and inflammation. In contrast, Doves, due to the greater release of mediators of allostasis (surplus), are more susceptible to anxiety disorders, metabolic syndromes, melancholic depression, psychotic states and infection.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2004.08.009

Cites

475 of 475 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The text we found for this paper looks like another document, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The text we found for this paper looks like another document, so the self-check wasn’t run.

Citations

Cites

Items 201–400 of 475

Research works printed but not linked: 12

  1. Tausk, 1951, Hat die Nebenniere tatsächlich eine Verteidigungsfunktion?, Das Hormon (Organon Holland), 3, 1
  2. De Kloet, 1999, Stress and cognition: are corticosteroids good or bad guys?, Trends Neurosci, 22, 422, 10.1016/S0166-2236(99)01438-1 · DOI · Paper page
  3. Diamond, 1992, Inverted–U relationship between the level of peripheral corticosterone and the magnitude of hippocampal primed burst potentiation, Hippocampus, 2, 421, 10.1002/hipo.450020409 · DOI · Paper page
  4. Wingfield, 1997, Corticosterone and facultative dispersal in response to unpredictable events, Ardea, 85, 155
  5. Korte, 1992, Conditioned neuroendocrine and cardiovascular stress responsiveness accompanying behavioral passivity and activity in aged and in young rats, Physiol Behav, 51, 815, 10.1016/0031-9384(92)90120-Q · DOI
  6. Wingfield, 2001, Avoiding the ‘costs’ of testosterone: ecological bases of hormone–behavior interactions, Brain Behav Evol, 57, 239, 10.1159/000047243 · DOI
  7. Veenema, 2003, Genetic selection for coping style predicts stressor susceptibility, J Neuroendocrinol, 15, 256, 10.1046/j.1365-2826.2003.00986.x · DOI
  8. Feldker D. Towards the molecular basis of individual differences in vulnerability to stress: application of large scale gene expression profiling. Thesis. University of Leiden: The Netherlands; 2003.
  9. Magarinos, 1996, Chronic psychosocial stress causes apical dendritic atrophy of hippocampal CA3 pyramidal neurons in subordinate tree shrews, J Neurosci, 16, 3534, 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.16-10-03534.1996 · DOI · Paper page
  10. Sapolsky, 1992, vol. 1
  11. Sheline, 1999, Depression duration but not age predicts hippocampal volume loss in medically healthy women with recurrent major depression, J Neurosci, 19, 5034, 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.19-12-05034.1999 · DOI · Paper page
  12. Williams, 1991, Biobehavioral basis of coronary-prone behavior in middle-aged men. Part I: Evidence for chronic SNS activation in Type As, Psychosom Med, 53, 517, 10.1097/00006842-199109000-00003 · DOI

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 1,097

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Korte, S. M., Koolhaas, J. M., Wingfield, J. C., & McEwen, B. S.
Affiliations
  • Wageningen University & Research (NL)
  • University of Groningen (NL)
  • University of Washington (US)
  • Rockefeller University (US)
Corresponding author
Korte, S. Mechiel
ORCID
Venue
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2005-02
Volume
29
Issue
1
Pages
3-38
ISSN
0149-7634 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.neubiorev.2004.08.009
OpenAlex
W2166771493
Cited by
1,097
References
480
Citations by year
2026: 15 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 45 · 2023: 35 · 2022: 40 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 83 · 2019: 46 · 2018: 53 · 2017: 52 · 2016: 67 · 2015: 67 · 2014: 55 · 2013: 71 · 2012: 58
FWCI
2.75
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (acceptedVersion)
  • University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
Keywords
stress, allostasis, allostatic load, evolutionary psychology, aggressive personality, stress coping strategies, fight-or-flight response, stress-related disorders, anxiety disorders, depression, hypertension, inflammation, impulsivity
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Physiological, Animals, Behavior, Brain, Concept Formation, Biological Evolution, Female, Humans, Individuality, Male, Selection, Genetic, Species Specificity, Stress, Physiological, Models, Animal

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review