Glucocorticoids, stress, and their adverse neurological effects: relevance to aging
Open accessAbstract
Glucocorticoids, the adrenal steroids secreted during stress, while critical for successful adaptation to acute physical stressors, can have a variety of deleterious effects if secreted in excess. It has come to be recognized that glucocorticoid excess can have adverse effects in the nervous system, particularly the hippocampus. These effects include disruption of synaptic plasticity, atrophy of dendritic processes, compromising the ability of neurons to survive a variety of coincident insults and, at an extreme, overt neuron death. This review considers the current cellular and molecular bases underlying these adverse glucocorticoid actions, and their relevance to brain aging.
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CORT decreases glucose transport into neurons and glia in the hippocampus.
“One mechanism to explain these endangering effects of CORT is that the hormone decreases glucose transport into neurons and glia in the hippocampus.”
From The Stressed CNS: When Glucocorticoids Aggravate Inflammation (2009) · cites this paper as Sapolsky, 1999
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- Authors
- Sapolsky, R. M.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Sapolsky, Robert M
- ORCID
- Sapolsky, Robert M
- Venue
- Experimental Gerontology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1999-09
- Volume
- 34
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 721-732
- ISSN
- 0531-5565 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2090737424
- Cited by
- 507
- References
- 39
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 17 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 28 · 2013: 28 · 2012: 20
- FWCI
- 1.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Experimental Gerontology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (2r01mh053814-04)
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH 53814)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Keywords
- glucocorticoids, stress, hippocampus, neurodegeneration, synaptic plasticity, dendritic atrophy, neuronal survival, neuronal cell death, brain aging, glucocorticoid excess
- MeSH terms
- Aging, Animals, Glucocorticoids, Humans, Nervous System, Stress, Physiological
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