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As rates of stress, anxiety, and depression increase, the need for understanding resilience, or the ability to withstand crisis, may equip individuals to navigate stress across the lifetime. To examine how neurobiological insights on stress can build resilience, the National Academies’ Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders and Forum on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders hosted a workshop on March 24-25, 2025 that examined stress and resilience's neurobiological mechanisms, the role of neurodevelopment and lifelong neuroplasticity, effective approaches for optimizing resilience, and opportunities to inform public health programs and education on how to promote resilience.
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Workshop
·2025
Rising rates of stress, anxiety, and depression highlight the need to understand how the brain builds resilience across life stages. The National Academies' Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders, in collaboration with the Forum on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders, hosted a work...
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Description
A planning committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will host a 1.5-day public workshop that brings together leaders and experts across sectors and disciplines (e.g., neuroscience, psychology, neurodevelopment, public health, medicine, and education) to explore the application of neurobiological insights on stress for building resilience.
Invited presentations and discussions may:
- Review scientific evidence on the global rise of stress, differences among populations, and the relationship between stress and development of systemic disorders (e.g., psychiatric, neurological, metabolic, cardiovascular, and autoimmune), highlighting specific examples.
- Examine recent discoveries illuminating the neurobiological mechanisms of stress susceptibility, distinct mechanisms of resilience, and individual differences in response to stress and building resilience.
- Consider the role of both childhood neurodevelopment and neuroplasticity across the lifespan in building early-life and life-long resilience (as opposed to stress susceptibility) and discuss effective approaches for optimizing resilience during critical and sensitive periods of neurodevelopment.
- Explore how these findings could inform public health programs and education to promote resilience to stress.
- Discuss research gaps and opportunities for studying resilience across research, clinical, and public settings.
A planning committee will develop the agenda for the workshop, select and invite speakers and discussants, and moderate the discussions. Following the workshop, proceedings of the presentations and discussions will be prepared by a designated rapporteur in accordance with institutional guidelines.
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Sponsors
Acadia Pharmaceuticals
Alzheimer's Association
American Brain Coalition
American Neurological Association
Boehringer Ingelheim
BrightFocus Foundation
California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
Cerevel Therapeutics
Cohen Veterans Bioscience
Dana Foundation
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Veterans Affairs
Eisai
Food and Drug Administration
Foundation for the National Institutes of Health
Gatsby Charitable Foundation
Harmony Biosciences
Janssen Research & Development, LLC
Karuna Therapeutics
Lundbeck Research USA, Inc.
Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health
National Eye Institute
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
National Institute on Aging
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
National Institute on Drug Abuse
National Institutes of Health BRAIN Initiative
National Multiple Sclerosis Society
National Science Foundation
One Mind
Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group
Simons Foundation
Takeda
The George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rhode Island
Wellcome Trust
Staff
Allie Andrada Silver
Eva Childers
Kimberly Ogun
Major units and sub-units
Center for Health, People, and Places
Lead
Biomedical and Health Sciences Program Area
Lead
