Direct interaction with students operates as the main source of teachers’ job satisfaction as well as a cause of feelings of distress. Teaching student-teacher appropriate coping strategies might... Show moreDirect interaction with students operates as the main source of teachers’ job satisfaction as well as a cause of feelings of distress. Teaching student-teacher appropriate coping strategies might make direct interaction with students a source of greater job satisfaction. A typology has been developed of student-teachers’ responses to stressful classroom events in secondary education with four types of coping: “Varying”, “Being annoyed”, “Problem-solving” and “Avoiding” varying along two underlying dimensions: avoidance-approach and calmness-agitation. The coping types particularly differed in the way student-teachers approached, tolerated, avoided or ignored the classroom event, how agitated they were and the length of the coping response. Implications for teacher education are discussed to support student-teachers with more approach-coping strategies instead of avoidance-coping strategies. Show less
The ventral tegmental area dopamine (VTA-DA) mesolimbic circuit processes emotional, motivational, and social reward associations together with their more demanding cognitive aspects that involve... Show moreThe ventral tegmental area dopamine (VTA-DA) mesolimbic circuit processes emotional, motivational, and social reward associations together with their more demanding cognitive aspects that involve the mesocortical circuitry. Coping with stress increases VTA-DA excitability, but when the stressor becomes chronic the VTA-DA circuit is less active, which may lead to degeneration and local microglial activation. This switch between activation and inhibition of VTA-DA neurons is modulated by e.g. corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), opioids, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), and the adrenal glucocorticoids. These actions are coordinated with energy-demanding stress-coping styles to promote behavioral adaptation. The VTA circuits show sexual dimorphism that is programmed by sex hormones during perinatal life in a manner that can be affected by glucocorticoid exposure. We conclude that insight in the role of stress in VTA-DA plasticity and connectivity, during reward processing and stress-coping, will be helpful to better understand the mechanism of resilience to breakdown of adaptation. Show less
