The main objectives of this module are:

 

After completion of the course, students are able to

1. define the diverging and overlapping symptomatology of stress-related disorders.
2. understand how psychiatric symptomatology can be mapped onto neural systems supporting various cognitive and affective functions.
3. distinguish different levels of analysis in research into effects of stress on brain function, ranging from molecule to population and from basic neuroscience to clinical practice.
4. understand how fundamental, translational, and clinical research into cognitive and neural (dys)functions helps to explain and advance diagnosis and treatment of stress-related psychopathology.
5. evaluate and explain scientific literature in this field.

The module 

Stress is part of our everyday life and in most cases we effectively cope with such challenges. However, in some individuals and conditions, stress can pose a risk for the brain and our health, especially when the stress is severe, recurrent, chronic or occurs at an early age. The long-term consequences of stress depend on a complex interplay between genes and environment that ultimately determines vulnerability or resilience to psychopathology. This course will give an overview on how environmental stressors influence maladaptive neural mechanisms cumulating in stress-related disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, major depression, and addiction. It will explain how symptomatology observed across these disorders can be mapped onto neural systems supporting cognitive and affective functions such as learning and memory, emotion and mood regulation, attention, and motivation. Furthermore, different preventive and treatment strategies such as exposure therapy, pharmacotherapy, EMDR, Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT) and life style approaches are discussed. The course has a broad interdisciplinary and translational character and will explain how fundamental knowledge coming from preclinical studies in animal models and humans is applied to advance diagnosis and treatment.