Fig. 2: Extracting a dimensional marker of prolonged stress.

A Histograms show distributions for seven stress-related scores in n = 400 3 T HCP participants that were entered into a factor analysis as shown in panel C. B Correlations between the seven stress-related scores across all n = 400 participants (colour bar denotes Pearson’s r). C Factor analysis was used to extract a one-dimensional marker of stress: shown are the loadings onto the seven stress-related scores. The highest loadings are with perceived stress (PercStress), fear (FearAffect), self-efficacy (SelfEff, negative loading) and the ability to cope with stress (NEORAW_11, negative loading: When I’m under a great deal of stress, sometimes I feel like I’m going to pieces). Intermediate loadings were with anger aggression (AngAggr, positive loading), somatic fear (FearSomat, positive loading), and emotional support (EmotSupp, negative loading). The factor analysis was replicated in an independent dataset (Supplementary Fig. 4). D Distribution of the derived dimensional marker of stress generated from the factor analysis for all n = 400 3 T participants; the n = 98 7 T participants had reduced stress variance (see Supplementary Fig. 4).