Abstract
Although stressful events predispose individuals to psychiatric disorders, such as post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, not all people who encounter a stressful life experience have an onset, suggesting that gene‐environment interactions (GxE) determine disease risk. A growing evidence has implicated that stress‐induced aberrant synaptic and structural plasticity may be key underlying mechanisms of stress susceptibility. Recent studies have provided key insights into the biological significance of the regulation of gene expression in synaptic plasticity and behavioral response to chronic stress. The ventral hippocampus (vHPC) is vulnerable to damage from a variety of psychosocial stressors and aberrant structural and functional changes in this brain structure have been implicated in stress‐related psychiatric disorders. However, little is known about the role of transcription mechanisms within the vHPC in chronic stress‐induced aberrant neuronal plasticity and behavioral changes. Herein, I focus on causal and mechanistic evidence implicating altered functions of the vHPC in the establishment and the maintenance of stress resilience and susceptibility.
