Back to search results

PhD Studentship: Stress: The Good, The Bad, …

University of Birmingham - School of Psychology

Qualification Type: PhD
Location: Birmingham
Funding for: UK Students
Funding amount: Funded by the Midlands Mental Health and Neurosciences PhD Programme for Healthcare Professionals
Hours: Full Time
Placed On: 14th November 2024
Closes: 24th February 2025

A little bit of stress in life is inevitable, and can actually be positive and promote wellbeing, for example by prompting you into action and helping you to meet your deadline. Research has shown that moderate, short-lived stress can improve alertness and performance, and boost memory, by strengthening connections between neurons in the brain. However, when stress is prolonged, severe, or chronic, it may leave you feeling overwhelmed, burned out, and unable to cope, and may have a harmful impact on your health and wellbeing.

How do we know when we have reached the point that the positive effects of stress are turning into negative consequences? How much stress, and for how long, can we endure before we reach this counterpoint? Answering these questions has the potential to impact on the development of interventions to improve outcomes in stress related mental illnesses and establish the conditions in which such an intervention would be effective.

The ambition for this project is to use the vast amount of knowledge and methodologies on assessing stress to investigate the mechanisms pointing towards and underlying this counterpoint. The project will draw on the supervisors’ expertise in stress research and methods including questionnaire and behavioural assessments, structural and functional neuroimaging, and biomarker assessment using blood, urine, saliva, and hair samples. The project will bring a unique biopsychosocial perspective to the causal inference of stress on mental health and wellbeing.

Supervision team: Dr Renate Reniers (University of Birmingham), Prof Zubair Ahmed (University of Birmingham), Dr Carla Toro (University of Warwick).

Funding notes:

This studentship is funded by the Midlands Mental Health and Neurosciences PhD Programme for Healthcare Professionals: https://midlandsmhndtp.ac.uk/. For more details on the project, please visit: https://midlandsmhndtp.ac.uk/project/2025-renate-reniers. Full details regarding the recruitment process for applicants, including the recruitment timeline, can be found here: https://midlandsmhndtp.ac.uk/applications/2025-recruitment.

References:

Dhabhar FS. Effects of stress on immune function: the good, the bad, and the beautiful. Immunol Res. 2014 May;58(2-3):193-210. doi: 10.1007/s12026-014-8517-0. PMID: 24798553.

Lu S, Wei F, Li G. The evolution of the concept of stress and the framework of the stress system. Cell Stress. 2021 Apr 26;5(6):76-85. doi: 10.15698/cst2021.06.250. PMID: 34124582; PMCID: PMC8166217.

Marin MF, Lord C, Andrews J, Juster RP, Sindi S, Arsenault-Lapierre G, Fiocco AJ, Lupien SJ. Chronic stress, cognitive functioning and mental health. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2011 Nov;96(4):583-95. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2011.02.016. Epub 2011 Mar 2. PMID: 21376129.

We value your feedback on the quality of our adverts. If you have a comment to make about the overall quality of this advert, or its categorisation then please send us your feedback
Advert information

Type / Role:

Subject Area(s):

Location(s):

PhD tools
 

PhD Alert Created

Job Alert Created

Your PhD alert has been successfully created for this search.

Your job alert has been successfully created for this search.

Ok Ok

PhD Alert Created

Job Alert Created

Your PhD alert has been successfully created for this search.

Your job alert has been successfully created for this search.

Manage your job alerts Manage your job alerts

Account Verification Missing

In order to create multiple job alerts, you must first verify your email address to complete your account creation

Request verification email Request verification email

jobs.ac.uk Account Required

In order to create multiple alerts, you must create a jobs.ac.uk jobseeker account

Create Account Create Account

Alert Creation Failed

Unfortunately, your account is currently blocked. Please login to unblock your account.

Email Address Blocked

We received a delivery failure message when attempting to send you an email and therefore your email address has been blocked. You will not receive job alerts until your email address is unblocked. To do so, please choose from one of the two options below.

Max Alerts Reached

A maximum of 5 Job Alerts can be created against your account. Please remove an existing alert in order to create this new Job Alert

Manage your job alerts Manage your job alerts

Creation Failed

Unfortunately, your alert was not created at this time. Please try again.

Ok Ok

Create PhD Alert

Create Job Alert

When you create this PhD alert we will email you a selection of PhDs matching your criteria.When you create this job alert we will email you a selection of jobs matching your criteria. Our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy apply to this service. Any personal data you provide in setting up this alert is processed in accordance with our Privacy Notice

Create PhD Alert

Create Job Alert

When you create this PhD alert we will email you a selection of PhDs matching your criteria.When you create this job alert we will email you a selection of jobs matching your criteria. Our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy apply to this service. Any personal data you provide in setting up this alert is processed in accordance with our Privacy Notice

 
 
 
More PhDs from University of Birmingham

Show all PhDs for this organisation …

More PhDs like this
Join in and follow us

Browser Upgrade Recommended

jobs.ac.uk has been optimised for the latest browsers.

For the best user experience, we recommend viewing jobs.ac.uk on one of the following:

Google Chrome Firefox Microsoft Edge