Seminar Series 3: Lecture 3 - Prof Bruce McEwen

 'Of Molecules and Mind: Stress, the Individual and the Social Environment'

Prof Bruce McEwen, Alfred E Mirsky Professor / Head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology, The Rockefeller University, New York led the third seminar in Seminar Series 3 entitiled: 'Of Molecules and Mind: Stress, the Individual and the Social Environment'

Key ideas:

• Allostatic load: The extent to which the body must change in order to maintain stability under stress.
• Stressed out: A feeling of being chronically under stress and overwhelmed by everyday events.
• Telomere: The ends of linear chromosomes that are required for replication and stability; the tip (or end) of a chromosome.
• Allele: Alternative form of a gene; one of the different forms of a gene that can exist at a single locus.
• Cytokines: Any of several regulatory proteins that are released by cells of the immune system and act as intercellular mediators in the generation of an immune response.
• Dendrites: The branching process of a neuron that conducts impulses toward the cell. A single nerve may possess many dendrites.
• Sympathetic: Part of the autonomic nervous system functioning in opposition to the parasympathetic system, as in stimulating heartbeat, dilating the pupil of the eye, etc.
• Parasympathetic: Part of the autonomic nervous system functioning in opposition to the sympathetic system, as in inhibiting heartbeat, contracting the pupil of the eye, etc.