Building Resilience: The Stress Response as a Driving Force for Neuroplasticity and Adaptation

People exhibit an extraordinary capacity to adjust to stressful situations. Here, we argue that the acute stress response is a major driving force behind this adaptive process. In addition to immediately freeing energy reserves, facilitating a rapid and robust neurocognitive response, and helping to reinstate homeostasis, the stress response also critically regulates neuroplasticity. Understanding the healthy acute stress response is therefore crucial for understanding stress resilience: the maintenance or rapid recovery of mental health during and after times of adversity. Contemporary resilience research distinguishes between resilience factors (RFs) and resilience mechanisms (RMs). RFs refer to a broad array of social, psychological, or biological variables that are stable but potentially malleable and predict resilient outcomes. RMs, by contrast, refer to proximate mechanisms activated during acute stress that enable individuals to effectively navigate immediate challenges. In this paper, we review literature related to how neurotransmitter and hormonal changes during acute stress regulate the activation of RMs. We integrate literature on the timing-dependent and neuromodulator-specific regulation of neurocognition, episodic memory, and behavioral and motivational control, highlighting the distinct and often synergistic roles of catecholamines (dopamine and norepinephrine) and glucocorticoids. We conclude that stress resilience is bolstered by improved future predictions and the success-based reinforcement of effective coping strategies during acute stress. The resulting generalized memories of success, controllability, and safety constitute beneficial plasticity that lastingly improves self-control under stress. Insight into such mechanisms of resilience is critical for the development of novel interventions focused on prevention rather than treatment of stress-related disorders.