An analysis of neuroimmunoendocrine mechanisms of stress reaction

Abstract

This article is concerned with understanding selected aspects of the psychoneuroimmunoendocrine mechanisms underlying the organism's response to stress conditions. The neuroimmunoendocrinenetwork is a supreme association of systems regulating the health equilibrium of an organism - the homeostasis. A variety of stressors disrupts homeostasis and affect human functioning, and their correlation with physiological response is still a broad field of psychoneuroimmunoendocrinological research. Elevated or chronic levels of stress can have a wide range of negative health consequences, starting with emotional and followed by serious psychiatric and somatic diseases. Therefore, the underestimation of the pathogenic importance of stress, the inability to prevent stressful situations and to alleviate stress is now a major social and medical problem, and the World Health Organisationrefers to stress as the disease of the century.

Keywords

• stress
• nervous system
• immune system
• hormonal system
• psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology