'Unfortunately, in this study we can't say with certainty that stress causes these effects. However, stress resulting from a negative social environment during adolescence, such as low peer esteem at school, is connected to slower maturation of the brain area hippocampus and another part of the prefrontal cortex. Stress due to negative experiences during childhood, such as illness or divorce, appears to be related to faster maturation of the prefrontal cortex and amygdala in adolescence. These brain regions play an important role in functioning in social and emotional situations and are known to be sensitive to stress. They related these stress levels to the maturation of the prefrontal cortex, amygdala and hippocampus. The researchers investigated two types of stressors - negative life events and negative influences from the social environment - in two life stages of their subjects: early childhood (0-5 years) and adolescence (14-17 years). During adolescence, our brain experiences a natural pruning process in which previously made connections between brain cells are refined, allowing the creation of more useful and efficient networks. More specifically, they looked at the effects on cerebral maturation. This wealth of data has enabled Karin Roelofs, Professor of Experimental Psychopathology, her PhD student Anna Tyborowska and other colleagues of Radboud University to investigate how stress in various life stages affected the adolescent brain of these children. The children were also subjected to MRI scans. Over the past 20 years, researchers studied, inter alia, their play sessions and interactions with parents, friends and classmates. In 1998, the group - which then comprised 129 one-year-olds and their parents - was tested for the first time.
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