Selye, Hans

See also research, medical biochemical individuality and, 206-207 metabolism, 203 variations, exceptions and, 202 vision, 202-203 vitamin research and, 204-205 scopolamine, 228 scurvy, 167-168 self-esteem, genetics and, 16 self-selection of foods, 180 Selye, Hans, 230 senile dementia, 34-35, 227, 230 sensory physiology and psychology, 205 serotonin, 236 serum amylase, 80-81 serum lipase, 81 serum phenol sulfatase, 81 sex behavior, 100, 104-105 psychiatry and, 231 sex differences... 

Selye, Hans. From Dreams to Discovery. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York. 1964. 

Selye, Hans. The Stress of Life. New York McGraw-Hill, 1965. 

P. Sikiric, J. Rotkvic, S. Mise, R. Rucman, Proc. Hans Selye Symp.,Neuroendocrinol. Stress, Esterel - Quebec, Canada, 13-15 November 1989 P. Sikiric, L. Kalogjera, R. Kusec (to Sikiric), EP 282844, (1988)... 

More than a century ago Claude Bernard speculated that the milieu interne must be maintained to preserve life (B17). Later, Walter Cannon indicated that physical disturbances could elicit a coordinative response of the organism to keep homeostasis (C7). The stress concept of Hans Selye noted that these stimuli that disturbed the physical integrity of the organism resulted in a general adaptation... 

Gray TS (1990) Amygdaloid CRF pathways role in autonomic, neuroendocrine, and behavioral responses ot stress. In De Souza EB, Nemeroff CB (eds) Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Corticotropin-releasing factor and cytokines Proceedings of the Hans Selye Symposium on Nemoendocrinology and Stress, vol 697. New York Academy of Sciences, New York, pp 53-60... 

In the 20 century, many milestones were reached to establish psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience as the formal practices that they are today. During this time, the study of anxiety disorders was developed into its current state. Notable events include Austrian-Hungarian endocrinologist Hans Selye s (Figure 1.3) pivotal work on the stress response in the 1930s. Selye did much to define how we think about stress and its effects on the body, and how the stress response can lead to illness. 

Figure 1.3 Hans Selye was a pioneer in the fieid of stress research. He systematicaiiy studied the stress response and defined how we think about stress and its effects on the body.

Researchers at Texas A M University discovered that mood, blood pressure, and surgery recovery time can be influenced by art — but not just any kind of art. Patients who had Picasso reproductions in their rooms fared worse than those with blank walls, while some of those who gazed at Monet s water lilies recovered more quickly. I think Hans Selye must have loved beautiful paintings, too. After all, he was himself an artist of sorts. He carved part of the cortisol molecule into the cement outside his window when he was living on Milton Street near McGill. It s still there — a silent testimonial to the man my parents dragged me to see on that stressful day so long ago. 

This link of central state to peripheral outflow unifies Hans Selye s concept of stress to Cannon s fight or flight paradigm and places both in a model that specifies, to a first approximation, the way that brain-mind state control systems can coordinate the complex array of processes that are involved. The twin beneficiaries of our model and the interventions illuminated by it are nothing less than mental and bodily health. 

As human beings, we re not the only creatures who respond very badly to stress. Hans Selye, a Canadian researcher credited with being the father of the study of stress, used ordinary house mice as his test subjects. As his mouse population grew in a confined space, males fought more aggressively over territory, sometimes to the death. And females ceased to reproduce. 

The common point of view has been widely accepted that oxidative stress results in multiple defects in cellular structure and, thus, is damaging for cells, tissues and the body. Nowadays accumulated information allows to accept another concept (which, by the way, is close to that of Hans Selye who introduced this term to modem biology) — that oxidative stress is a way to mobilize adaptive and protective mechanisms of the organism to survive under extreme conditions. 

During the summers of 1948-1951,1 began to carry out research on the autonomic nervous system working in the laboratory of Curt Richter, Professor of Psychobiology at Johns Hopkins. He introduced me to the work of his heroes Claude Bernard, Walter Cannon in Boston and Hans Selye in Montreal. Dr. Richter took me to visit Selye, an endocrinologist in the Biochemistry Department at McGill University. 

Hans Selye, the Austrian-born founder of stress research said, "Complete freedom from stress is death" (Selye, 1974). It is extreme, disorganizing stress we need to avoid. Watch out for distress. 

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