Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-grvzd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-12T00:36:43.741Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cognitive perception of social stress as a critical mechanistic control of mood and mood-related brain signals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2025

Henrik Jörntell Open the ORCID record for Henrik Jörntell [Opens in a new window]
Henrik Jörntell*
Affiliation:
Department of Experimental Medical Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden henrik.jorntell@med.lu.se
*
*Corresponding author.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The paper of Dunbar (2025) on social stress is a strong demonstration that stress in itself can have a purely cognitive origin. The paper shows that the cognitive system can have profound impacts on the hypothalamus. As detailed in my commentary, this opens up new avenues of how to interpret psychiatric conditions, placebo, and other associations between perceptions and vegetative functions in the brain.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 48 , 2025 , e171
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bao, A. M., & Swaab, D. F. (2019). The human hypothalamus in mood disorders: The HPA axis in the center. IBRO Reports, 6, 45–53.10.1016/j.ibror.2018.11.008CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Breton-Provencher, V., Drummond, G. T., Feng, J., Li, Y., & Sur, M. (2022). Spatiotemporal dynamics of noradrenaline during learned behaviour. Nature, 606(7915), 732–738.10.1038/s41586-022-04782-2CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunbar, R. I. M. (2025). Structural and cognitive mechanisms of group cohesion in primates. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, in press. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X2400030X CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman-Rakic, P. S. (1995). Cellular basis of working memory. Neuron, 14(3), 477–485.10.1016/0896-6273(95)90304-6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kristensen, S. S., Kesgin, K., & Jörntell, H. (2024). High-dimensional cortical signals reveal rich bimodal and working memory-like representations among S1 neuron populations. Communications Biology, 7(1), 1043.10.1038/s42003-024-06743-zCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leichsenring, F., Steinert, C., Rabung, S., & Ioannidis, J. P. (2022). The efficacy of psychotherapies and pharmacotherapies for mental disorders in adults: An umbrella review and meta analytic evaluation of recent meta analyses. World Psychiatry, 21(1), 133–145.10.1002/wps.20941CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jourdain, E., Karoliussen, R., Fordyce Martin, S. L., Langangen, Ø., Robeck, T., Borgå, K., … & Foote, A. D. (2024). Social and genetic connectivity despite ecological variation in a killer whale network. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 291(2021), 20240524.10.1098/rspb.2024.0524CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moncrieff, J., Cooper, R. E., Stockmann, T., Amendola, S., Hengartner, M. P., & Horowitz, M. A. (2023). The serotonin theory of depression: A systematic umbrella review of the evidence. Molecular Psychiatry, 28(8), 3243–3256.10.1038/s41380-022-01661-0CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mårtensson, L., Enander, J., Rongala, U. B., & Jörntell, H. (2025). A foundational theory for decentralized sensory learning. arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.15130. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2503.15130 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stratmann, P., Albu-Schäffer, A., & Jörntell, H. (2018). Scaling our world view: How monoamines can put context into brain circuitry. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, 12, 506.10.3389/fncel.2018.00506CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wang, R. L., & Chang, R. B. (2024). The coding logic of interoception. Annual Review of Physiology, 86(1), 301–327.10.1146/annurev-physiol-042222-023455CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed