Resilience to the effects of social stress: Evidence from clinical and preclinical studies on the role of coping strategies

TLDR

Social stress is the most common and intense stressor, and coping strategy type may influence resilience, yet the interaction of neural mechanisms, especially in females and early development, remains poorly understood. The review examines how individual differences in coping strategies affect resilience or vulnerability in social‑stress models and proposes that resilience is context‑specific and may require fine‑tuning to changing environments. The authors review social‑stress models that assess how coping‑strategy differences influence resilience or vulnerability. Neurobiological mechanisms underlying coping‑strategy differences are discussed, revealing multiple neural pathways that drive resilience or vulnerability, and the authors suggest that resilience may be context‑specific and require fine‑tuning to changing environments.

Abstract

The most common form of stress encountered by people stems from one's social environment and is perceived as more intense than other types of stressors. One feature that may be related to differential resilience or vulnerability to stress is the type of strategy used to cope with the stressor, either active or passive coping. This review focuses on models of social stress in which individual differences in coping strategies produce resilience or vulnerability to the effects of stress. Neurobiological mechanisms underlying these individual differences are discussed. Overall, the literature suggests that there are multiple neural mechanisms that underlie individual differences in stress-induced resilience and vulnerability. How these mechanisms interact with one another to produce a resilient or vulnerable phenotype is not understood and such mechanisms have been poorly studied in females and in early developmental periods. Finally, we propose that resilience may be stress context specific and resilience phenotypes may need to be fine-tuned to suit a shifting environment.