Association of Chronic Stress with Agency, Theory of Mind Function and Abstract Construal in Women

Abstract

Stress disrupts the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) networks required for conscious-ness, abstract construal, self-referential thinking, reward circuitry and theory-of-mind functions. We used stress assessment inventories to survey a cohort of 113 women for self-reported stress over a 5 -10-year period. We identified two subsets of women consistently reporting either high (n = 21) or low (n = 24) stress over this pe-riod. These cohorts answered the eSAIL, REM and Apathy Evaluation Scale ques-tionnaires. Significant differences were found between cohorts in apathy and REM scores, as well as in RD, self-agency and abstraction, but not in other subscales of the eSAIL.