Researchers at the University of Calgary discovered that stress is more than just contagious: it changes the brain at the cellular level. And from a polyvagal perspective, we now understand why this happens and what it means for our social connections.
Research in Mice
In an important study published in 2018 in Nature Neuroscience, Jaideep Bains, PhD, and his team at the Cumming School of Medicine’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI), a division of the University of Calgary, discovered that stress we pick up from others can change our brain in exactly the same way as real stress does. The study convincingly demonstrated this in mice, and by now (2025) much follow-up research has been conducted that has further expanded these findings.
“Brain changes resulting from stress reinforce many mental disorders such as PTSD, anxiety disorders, and depression,” says Bains, professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and member of the HBI. “Recent studies sho…
