The Complexity of Simplicity: Role of Sex, Development and Environment in the Modulation of the Stress Response

Anecdotally, we all know that stress is ‘complicated’, although most stress research is undertaken using incredibly simplified models that may not allow us to fully understand the underlying interactive mechanisms present in the ‘real world’. This attempt at simplification, although sometimes necessary, may explain some of the difficulties faced when integrating basic science findings with the clinical and epidemiological data on stress and stress‐related disorders. In a symposium held at the 2015 International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology meeting in Edinburgh, UK , a series of speakers explored ‘The Many Pathways to Plasticity in the Stress System’, specifically focusing on variables that, in many cases, are eliminated from studies of stress to provide increased experimental control. Specifically, four speakers tackled the complex contributions of ‘Sex, Development and Environment’ in stress research, and reported published and unpublished evidence from work conducted in their own laboratories demonstrating that, in our race for simplicity in experimentation, the stories that we tell become all the more complex.