Frontiers of stress research: the 2nd Munich Winter Conference on Stress

first paragraph: Challenges are the spice of life, for without a little bit of pressure, excitement and uncertainty, life would be a dull endeavor. However, chronic exposure to such stressful situations can in some cases lead to maladaptations and ultimately disease (De Kloet et al., Citation2005; Joëls & Baram, Citation2009). In the Munich Winter Stress Conference series (Schmidt & Chen, Citation2018), which took place for the second time in 2019, experts gather to discuss the latest advances in stress research, aiming to unravel the mechanisms underlying the regulation of the stress response and ultimately individual stress vulnerability or resilience. The last meeting took place at a time where we could all still meet in person, without social distancing, facial masks and the constant fear of getting a life-threatening viral infection. The Covid-19 pandemic has been, and continues to be, an unprecedented challenge, costing thousands of lives every day and causing exceptional suffering on a personal as well as societal level (Guessoum et al., Citation2020; Pfefferbaum & North, Citation2020). Besides the devastating health problems caused by this disease itself, the economic and social consequences are greater than anything witnessed in recent history (Vinkers et al., Citation2020). As a consequence, stress-induced illnesses are further on the rise and new advances in the field of stress research are dearly needed. The current special issue inspired by the 2nd Munich Winter Conference on Stress is therefore a timely collection of both review and research articles, illustrating many of the advances in this field of research.