Military resilience biomarkers remain candidates, with useful thresholds still undefined
A review links patterns of circulating stress markers to military-specific resilience. It emphasizes how responses change and recover, while leaving thresholds and measurement timing unresolved.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
The review describes an association between greater military-specific resilience and a strong but controlled biological response to an acute stressor, followed by a rapid return toward baseline. It identifies promising circulating markers, but does not provide validated cutoffs or measurement schedules. These findings do not establish a standalone test of a person's resilience or a method for improving it.
Abstract-only access leaves study counts, sample sizes and quantitative associations unavailable. The authors also identify unresolved thresholds and sampling times, which limit interpretation of an individual's result.
Patterns of response and recovery
The review discusses cortisol and other circulating markers as possible clues to performance resilience under military stress. Its central idea concerns the pattern of response and recovery, not a single universally favorable biomarker level.
Context affects interpretation
Interpreting those patterns requires attention to how intense and prolonged the stressor was, prior military experience and differences in study methods. The abstract does not give a standardized procedure that accounts for all these factors.
The original publication
Circulating Biomarkers of Military-Specific Performance Resilience: A Systematic Review.
Van Cutsem J, van den Berg NH, Flores B et al.
Curr Psychiatry Rep · 2026
- PubMed ID
- 41714467
- Record checked
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