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Brains that cope well with stress resemble one another
People who are resilient to psychological stress are similar to each other – not in appearance, but in how their brains respond to stressful experiences.
Psychological resilience is the ability to cope with adversity effectively. It plays a crucial role in our overall well-being.
So why are some people better able to cope with stress and mental strain over time than others?
“The way you deal with adversity or stressful situations does not necessarily mean you lack resilience. But some people have greater reserves to draw on,” says neuroscientist Maryam Ziaei at NTNU.
Visible on MRI scans
Ziaei and her research team at NTNU’s Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience have now taken a closer look at what happens in our brains when we are exposed to psychological stress.
They collaborated with Alireza Salami at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.
“We wanted to test whether it was possible to understand why people experience situations so differently. And we could actually see it in the neural mechanisms. People with high resilience react similarly. People with low tolerance react more individually,” says Ziaei.
In the study, the researchers observed 33 men and 29 women in an fMRI scanner while they watched two different films. The participants were aged 19 to 35, in good mental health, and were not substance users.
How the researchers examined the participants' brains
A ‘neutral’ film showed a woman making pottery. The other showed a woman desperately trying to avoid falling into the abyss.
The participants’ brains were scanned as they watched the films.
“When an area of the brain is activated, such as an emotional response to something we see, blood flows to that specific area of the brain,” says Ziaei.
Blood contains haemoglobin and oxygen. As brain cell activity increases, the cells use oxygen.
"The oxygen leaves the haemoglobin, and the blood becomes deoxygenated. This is what we measure with functional MRI,” the researcher explains.
Problems can arise in different ways
The participants were asked to complete a series of questionnaires about themselves.
The topics included anxiety, depression, perceived stress, and how they felt about completing computer-based tasks.
The scans revealed that participants who reported high psychological resilience activated the same brain regions while watching the films.
Those who reported low resilience activated different brain regions. Within this group, there were also fewer similarities in the areas that were activated.
The Anna Karenina model
“It’s not that the areas don’t work, they just work in different ways,” says Ziaei.
'All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,' Leo Tolstoy wrote in his literary masterpiece Anna Karenina.
Neuroscientists often refer to the Anna Karenina model: well-functioning systems are similar to one another, while problems can arise in many different ways.
“You can compare it to a car. Cars consist of many different parts, and all of them must work properly for the car to run. If one or more of the parts malfunctions, the car will eventually break down altogether,” says Ziaei.
An important aspect of mental health
The researchers explain that mental resilience is not a stable personality trait, but a dynamic process that influences how we perceive stress, assess situations, and deal with them.
People with high resilience often experience more positive emotions, are quicker to let go of negative stimuli, and regulate their emotions more effectively.
“Psychological resilience is about our ability to cope with adversity and to adapt when something unpleasant happens. It's an important part of our mental health,” says Ziaei.
The researchers studied the neurobiological mechanisms involved. They also wanted to examine the role that intolerance of uncertainty plays in the relationship between brain activity and resilience.
Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a personality trait in which uncertain situations are often perceived as threatening, stressful, and upsetting.
Discomfort with uncertainty can lead to anxiety
This is, in turn, a risk factor for developing anxiety disorders.
The researchers measured this among participants using questionnaires, where they could agree with statements such as, 'Unexpected events upset me greatly.'
They found that people who tolerate uncertainty less well show less similarity in the brain activity associated with resilience, Ziaei explains.
In other words, people who are less comfortable with uncertainty tend to have brain activity that is less ‘synchronised’ in regions that help them focus and be resilient.
“This suggests that discomfort in connection with uncertainty can make it harder to recover from challenges because it affects what they focus their attention on in their surroundings,” says Ziaei.
Strengthening strategies
The researcher says the findings are important for understanding how we can learn to become more resilient.
“If you become very anxious when something seems uncertain, it will affect how you function and how you use your resources to achieve mental well-being. People have different strategies for regulating their emotions, and these strategies can be worked on and strengthened,” says Ziaei.
A low tolerance for uncertainty influences how people interpret the world around them. As a result, they may feel that they have lower resilience.
“Now that we know this component is important, we may be able to develop methods that can influence these mechanisms,” the researcher says.
This may help people strengthen their ability to tolerate uncertainty or regulate their emotions more effectively.
“That might be a good idea, considering that low resilience over time can make people susceptible to anxiety, depression, and other neuropsychiatric disorders,” says Ziaei.
Reference:
Ye et al. Resilience-related neural similarity during naturalistic movie watching, Imaging Neuroscience, 2026 DOI: 10.1162/IMAG.a.1165
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Read the Norwegian version of this article on forskning.no
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