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Glucocorticoids and stress: permissive and suppressive actions
1Department of Physiology, Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, New Hampshire 03756-0001.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
|November 30, 1994
Summary
Glucocorticoids protect the body from stress by suppressing overactive defense mechanisms. They induce mediator receptors permissively while suppressing mediator production, balancing the organism's response.
Area of Science:
- Endocrinology
- Immunology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Glucocorticoids play a dual role in stress response, exhibiting both permissive and suppressive actions.
- Recent evidence highlights the physiological significance of glucocorticoid suppressive actions in preventing self-damage during stress.
Purpose of the Study:
- To summarize evidence supporting the hypothesis that glucocorticoids prevent stress-induced defense mechanisms from causing organismal damage.
- To elucidate the dual mechanism of glucocorticoids involving permissive receptor induction and suppressive mediator control.
Main Methods:
- Review and synthesis of evidence from the past decade.
- Analysis of glucocorticoid effects on inflammatory, immune, and central nervous system responses.
- Examination of glucocorticoid-induced changes in mediator receptors and production.
Main Results:
- Glucocorticoids control inflammatory and immune responses, protect against shock, and regulate CNS responses.
- They moderate defense reactions by suppressing cytokines and other mediators.
- Glucocorticoids permissively induce receptors for mediators they also suppress.
Conclusions:
- Glucocorticoids act as crucial regulators of the stress response, preventing excessive self-damaging reactions.
- A model is proposed where glucocorticoids balance mediator system activity by modulating both receptor availability and mediator production.
- This dual action ensures a controlled and protective physiological response to stress.