O ESTRESSE CRÔNICO E SUA INFLUÊNCIA NA OCORRÊNCIA DE TRANSTORNOS DEPRESSIVOS: IMPACTOS COGNITIVOS E PSICOLÓGICOS

Abstract

Stress is a very complex biopsychosocial process, as its response mechanisms involve genetic, social, cultural factors trsits, as wellas the psychic apparatus and the nervous and endocrine systems.Scientific literature presents a relationship between chronic stress and the development of depression, points out the demage caused to brain structures involved in stress response mechanism, ans the impairment of cognitive functions. A stressor is any enviromental stimulus capable of threatening the state of homeostasis. Faced with the perception of a threat to homeostasis, there is an activation of the Hipothalamic- Pituitary- Adrenal, ( HPA) axis, generating the stress response. The objetive of the research is to understand how chronic stress impacts cognition, becoming a factor in depressive disorders, investigate the biological mechanism of the stress and its cognitive impacts , explore how these impacts relate to depression and understand how factors of vulnerabilyt to stress and to depression can be developed from childhood. This work is a literature review study, based on explanatory research with a qualitative approach.The main result showed that the mechanisms of the stress response are closely related to the symptoms of depression and that depressed individuals appear to have high levels of glucocorticoids. The results of this work bring important theorical and practical contributions to the psycology communit, as it is a topic that has relevance to clinical practice, by describing the impacts of stress on brain structures and their functioning, as well as the psycological aspects involved in the response to stress, and the role os psychotherapy as an indispensable part of treatment.