Several studies have investigated the effects of stress on adult neurogenesis – these reports have varied in the stressor used and the duration of its application (Table 1). For acute stress, a single episode of stressful experience, some conflicting data exist but the overall result appears to be that stress inhibits adult neurogenesis by lowering the rate of cell proliferation. Subordination stress in adult tree shrews and marmosets results in a decrease in cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus (Gould et al., 1997; 1998). Similar results have been demonstrated for adult mice exposed to social defeat (Yap et al., 2006; Lagace et al., 2010). However, one study reported that acute exposure to a dominant conspecific does not affect cell proliferation in rats, but instead decreases survival of new neurons (Thomas et al., 2007). A likely reason for the lack of effect on cell proliferation in this study was that new cells were labeled with BrdU before the stressful experience so it was not a direct test of stress effects on proliferating cells. Indeed, a large number of studies examining other types of stressors suggest that acute stress can have a suppressive effect on cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus.
