Winners of the 2024 Stress Science Paper of the Year Award!

We are excited to announce the team winners of the first annual Stress Science Paper of the Year Award!

Nominations were accepted via email and our web platform between January and May of 2025 for papers that were accepted for publication in 2024. The directors of the stress network reviewed and ranked each of the papers taking into account quality and design, novelty, and potential impact on the field. Papers were selected as the winner and honorable mention for each category and tie breakers were resolved by a vote including the larger Stress Network Co-Investigators.

Basic research/animal models 

First place:  

Grippo, A. J., Akinbo, O. I., Amidei, A., Wardwell, J., Normann, M. C., Ciosek, S., & Kovalev, D. (2024). Maladaptive cardiac and behavioral reactivity to repeated vicarious stress exposure in socially bonded male prairie vole siblings. Autonomic Neuroscience, 251, 103145.

*This study highlights the social mammalian stress response during repeated episodes of vicarious stress, revealing it’s effects on both the SNS and PNS, and extensive behavioral effects such as the freeze response.

Honorable Mention:  

Frye, B. M., Negrey, J. D., Johnson, C. S., Kim, J., Barcus, R. A., Lockhart, S. N., Whitlow, C. T., Chiou, K. L., Snyder-Mackler, N., Montine, T. J., Craft, S., Shively, C. A., & Register, T. C. (2024). Mediterranean diet protects against a neuroinflammatory cortical transcriptome: Associations with brain volumetrics, peripheral inflammation, social isolation, and anxiety in nonhuman primates (Macaca fascicularis). Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 119, 681-692.

Empirical human/clinical research 

First place:  

van Rooij, S. J., Santos, J. L., Hinojosa, C. A., Ely, T. D., Harnett, N. G., Murty, V. P., ... & Stevens, J. S. (2024). Defining the r factor for post-trauma resilience and its neural predictors. Nature Mental Health, 2(6), 680-693.

*This large fMRI study examined both responses to reward and threat, and has implications for interventions focused on developing resilience to trauma

Honorable Mention:  

Rush, J., Ong, A. D., Piazza, J. R., Charles, S. T., & Almeida, D. M. (2024). Too little, too much, and “just right”: Exploring the “goldilocks zone” of daily stress reactivity. Emotion, 24(5), 1249–1258.

New methods/theory/review 

First place:  

Ma, Y., & Kroemer, G. (2024). The cancer-immune dialogue in the context of stress. Nature Reviews Immunology, 24(4), 264-281.

*The stress-cancer link has been elusive with piecemeal evidence over decades. This review provides an integrative model of how stress mediators impact cancer related immunosurveillance, including metabolic and microbial dynamics, and effects on tumor biology and points out gaps in our knowledge.

Honorable Mention:  

Holman, E. A., Garfin, D. R., & Silver, R. C. (2024). It matters what you see: Graphic media images of war and terror may amplify distress. Invited perspective for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. (PNAS), 121(29), e2318465121.