Winners of the 2025 Stress Science Paper of the Year Award!

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

Nominations were accepted via email and our web platform between February and March 2026 for papers accepted for publication in 2025. The directors and co-investigators of the network reviewed and ranked each nominated paper based on criteria such as quality and design, novelty, and potential impact on the field. When relevant, we also consulted an external evaluator. Winners and honorable mentions were selected for each category.

We also created a new category, Naturalistic Study, to recognize innovative work that uses naturalistic stressors to advance our understanding of human stress processes.

Basic research/animal models 

First place:  

Lyons, C. E., Pallais, J. P., McGonigle, S., Mansk, R. P., Collinge, C. W., Yousefzadeh, M. J., ... & Bartolomucci, A. (2025). Chronic social stress induces p16-mediated senescent cell accumulation in mice. Nature Aging.

Honorable Mention:  

Georgiou, P., Postle, A. F., Mou, T. C. M., Potter, L. E., An, X., Zanos, P., ... & Gould, T. D. (2025). Estradiol, via estrogen receptor β signaling, mediates stress-susceptibility in the male brain. Molecular psychiatry.

King, S. E., Schatz, N. A., Babenko, O., Ilnytskyy, Y., Kovalchuk, I., & Metz, G. A. (2025). Prenatal maternal stress in rats alters the epigenetic and transcriptomic landscape of the maternal-fetal interface across four generations. Communications Biology.

Empirical human/clinical research 

First place:  

Chang, M., & Robles, T. F. (2025). Measuring premature and cumulative family member bereavement: Racial disparities and later mortality risk. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Honorable Mention:  

Puhlmann, L. M., Vrtička, P., Linz, R., Valk, S. L., Papassotiriou, I., Chrousos, G. P., ... & Singer, T. (2025). Serum BDNF increase after 9-month contemplative mental training is associated with decreased cortisol secretion and increased dentate gyrus volume: Evidence from a randomized clinical trial. Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science.

New methods/theory/review 

First place (Meta-analytical):  

Gu, H., Lei, Y., Yao, Y., Chen, C., & Liu, C. (2025). Physiological and psychological responses to acute stress: A meta-analysis of the 171 studies of Trier Social Stress Test including 8,452 healthy adults. Psychoneuroendocrinology.

First place (Conceptual):

Kahhale, I., Byrd, A., & Hanson, J. (2025). Early life adversity and empathy: A scoping review of past research and recommendations for future directions. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review.

Honorable Mention (Meta-analytical):  

Barthel, M. C., Fricke, K., Muehlhan, M., Vogel, S., & Alexander, N. (2025). Habituation of the biological response to repeated psychosocial stress: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

Honorable Mention (Conceptual):

Cancela, L. M., Mongi-Bragato, B., Avalos, M. P., & Bollati, F. A. (2025). From stress to substance use disorders: The expanding role of microglia–astrocyte crosstalk in neuroimmune and glutamate alterations in the nucleus accumbens. International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Naturalistic Study

First place (Conceptual):

Netzer, O., Magal, N., Stern, Y., Polinsky, T., Gross, R., Admon, R. and Salomon, R. (2025), Trauma under psychedelics: how psychoactive substances impact trauma processing. World Psychiatry.