Chronic Adversity May Impair Dopamine System, Coping with Stress

People exposed to a lifetime of psychosocial adversity may have an impaired ability to produce the dopamine levels needed for coping with acutely stressful situations, according to a new study.
Published in eLife, the study may help explain why long-term exposure to psychological trauma and abuse increases the risk of mental illness and addiction, researchers noted.
“We already know that chronic psychosocial adversity can induce vulnerability to mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and d