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Glucocorticoids and “Stress” Are Not Synonymous

Reference to glucocorticoids as “stress hormones” has been growing in prevalence in the literature, including in comparative and environmental endocrinology. Although glucocorticoids are elevated in response to a variety of stressors in vertebrate animals, the primary functions of glucocorticoids ar...

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Autores principales: MacDougall-Shackleton, S A, Bonier, F, Romero, L M, Moore, I T
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7671118/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33791532
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/iob/obz017
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author MacDougall-Shackleton, S A
Bonier, F
Romero, L M
Moore, I T
author_facet MacDougall-Shackleton, S A
Bonier, F
Romero, L M
Moore, I T
author_sort MacDougall-Shackleton, S A
collection PubMed
description Reference to glucocorticoids as “stress hormones” has been growing in prevalence in the literature, including in comparative and environmental endocrinology. Although glucocorticoids are elevated in response to a variety of stressors in vertebrate animals, the primary functions of glucocorticoids are not responding to stressors and they are only one component of complex suite of physiological and behavioral responses to stressors. Thus, the use of the short-hand phrase “stress hormone” can be misleading. Further, simply measuring glucocorticoids is not equivalent to measuring a stress response, nor is manipulating glucocorticoids equivalent to exposing an animal to a stressor. In this commentary we highlight the problems with using functional names for hormones, and of treating cortisol or corticosterone as synonymous with stress. We provide recommendations to add clarity to the presentation of research on this topic, and to avoid conflation of glucocorticoids with stressors and the stress response in the design of experiments.
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spelling pubmed-76711182021-03-30 Glucocorticoids and “Stress” Are Not Synonymous MacDougall-Shackleton, S A Bonier, F Romero, L M Moore, I T Integr Org Biol Commentary Reference to glucocorticoids as “stress hormones” has been growing in prevalence in the literature, including in comparative and environmental endocrinology. Although glucocorticoids are elevated in response to a variety of stressors in vertebrate animals, the primary functions of glucocorticoids are not responding to stressors and they are only one component of complex suite of physiological and behavioral responses to stressors. Thus, the use of the short-hand phrase “stress hormone” can be misleading. Further, simply measuring glucocorticoids is not equivalent to measuring a stress response, nor is manipulating glucocorticoids equivalent to exposing an animal to a stressor. In this commentary we highlight the problems with using functional names for hormones, and of treating cortisol or corticosterone as synonymous with stress. We provide recommendations to add clarity to the presentation of research on this topic, and to avoid conflation of glucocorticoids with stressors and the stress response in the design of experiments. Oxford University Press 2019-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC7671118/ /pubmed/33791532 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/iob/obz017 Text en © The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Commentary
MacDougall-Shackleton, S A
Bonier, F
Romero, L M
Moore, I T
Glucocorticoids and “Stress” Are Not Synonymous
title Glucocorticoids and “Stress” Are Not Synonymous
title_full Glucocorticoids and “Stress” Are Not Synonymous
title_fullStr Glucocorticoids and “Stress” Are Not Synonymous
title_full_unstemmed Glucocorticoids and “Stress” Are Not Synonymous
title_short Glucocorticoids and “Stress” Are Not Synonymous
title_sort glucocorticoids and “stress” are not synonymous
topic Commentary
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7671118/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33791532
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/iob/obz017
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