The evolution of the concept of stress and the framework of the stress system
Authors:Siyu Lu1, Fang Wei1,2 and Guolin Li1,2,3
1 Center for Aging Biomedicine, Key Laboratory of Protein Chemistry and Developmental Biology of Fish of Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan 410081, China.
2 National & Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Animal Peptide Drug Development, College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan 410081, China.
3 Key Laboratory of Hunan Province for Model Animal and Stem Cell Biology, School of Medicine, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan 410081, China.
Keywords:
stress, homeostasis, concept, definition, eustress, distress, sustress.
Abbreviatons:
GAS – general adaption syndrome,
HPA – hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal,
ROS – reactive oxygen species.
Corresponding Author(s):
Conflict of interest statement:
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Please cite this article as:
Siyu Lu, Fang Wei and Guolin Li (2021). The evolution of the concept of stress and the framework of the stress system. Cell Stress 5(6): 76-85. doi: 10.15698/cst2021.06.250
© 2021 Lu et al. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.
Abstract:
Stress is a central concept in biology and has now been widely used in psychological, physiological, social, and even environmental fields. However, the concept of stress was cross-utilized to refer to different elements of the stress system including stressful stimulus, stressor, stress response, and stress effect. Here, we summarized the evolution of the concept of stress and the framework of the stress system. We find although the concept of stress is developed from Selye’s “general adaptation syndrome”, it has now expanded and evolved significantly. Stress is now defined as a state of homeostasis being challenged, including both system stress and local stress. A specific stressor may potentially bring about specific local stress, while the intensity of stress beyond a threshold may commonly activate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and result in a systematic stress response. The framework of the stress system indicates that stress includes three types: sustress (inadequate stress), eustress (good stress), and distress (bad stress). Both sustress and distress might impair normal physiological functions and even lead to pathological conditions, while eustress might benefit health through hormesis-induced optimization of homeostasis. Therefore, an optimal stress level is essential for building biological shields to guarantee normal life processes.