When male mice experience a short, intense social stress, specific genes and inflammatory molecules become active across key stress-response organs—hypothalamus, pituitary, and adrenal gland—but this activity stops within a day and does not occur with long-term stress.

In male mice, prolonged exposure to social stress leads to increased activity in specific immune-related molecules in the brain region that regulates emotion, and this change is linked to lasting behaviors that resemble anxiety.

In male mice, prolonged social stress reduces the production of the stress hormone corticosterone in the adrenal gland by decreasing the activity of specific enzymes involved in its synthesis, whereas short-term stress temporarily increases corticosterone levels, suggesting a change in how the stress response system functions over time.

Long-term stress can mess with your body's stress control system, making it harder to calm down and causing ongoing inflammation that might lead to health problems.