Chapter 3 - Resilience as a process instead of a trait

Abstract

Instead of considering resilience as a dispositional quality or trait, this chapter examines how learning contributes to the process of building resilience. Learning-to-cope sessions of training modeled in monkeys protect against subsequent behavioral deficits on tests of emotionality and diminish the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis neuroendocrine stress response. Similar learning-to-cope training effects were then found for mice monitored on tail-suspension, open-field, object-exploration, and restraint-stress tests. Convergent results across diverse models in both sexes of monkeys and mice establish reproducibility and potential translational relevance. Learning-to-cope training also increases stargazin in anterior cingulate cortex of both monkeys and mice. Stargazin mediates synaptic plasticity by regulating AMPA receptor trafficking as a mechanism for learning, viewed functionally in terms of behavior change. Molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity considered in the context of learning to cope with stress provide psychobiological targets for resilience research.