title: The glucocorticoid hormone: from pedestal to dust and back.
abstract: A potential injury to the hippocampus has been postulated by the "glucocorticoid cascade hypothesis" as deriving from the life-long exposure to the stress glucocorticoid hormone. This hypothesis has been extensively resorted to in the search of a physio-pathological basis of the cognitive and behavioural impairments of old age, as well as for assigning to the hormone a not-irrelevant pathogenic role in brain degenerative diseases. Here I discuss the experimental evidences that have credited to stress a killing-licence, and pose, on the contrary, that the modest degrees of hypercortisolemia present in the above conditions could be interpreted as a beneficial occurrence.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisiologia Umana e Farmacologia, Università degli Studi "La Sapienza", Piazzale A. Moro, 5 00185, Rome, Italy. lucan@uniroma1.it
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Angelucci
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D005938:Glucocorticoids / Q000502:physiology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology
chemical_list: D005938:Glucocorticoids