Information theory has been applied productively across biology, but it has been used minimally in endocrinology. Here, we advocate for the integration of information theory into stress endocrinology. Presently, the majority of models of stress center on the regulation of hormone concentrations, even though what interests most endocrinologists and matters in terms of individual health and evolutionary fitness is the information content of hormones. In neuroscience, the free energy principle, a concept offered to explain how the brain infers current and future states of the environment, could be a guide for resolving how information is instantiated in hormones such as the glucocorticoids. Here, we offer several ideas and promising options for research addressing how hormones encode and cells respond to information in glucocorticoids.

信息论已在生物学中得到有效应用，但在内分泌学中的应用却很少。在这里，我们提倡将信息论融入压力内分泌学。目前，大多数压力模型都集中在激素浓度的调节上，尽管大多数内分泌学家感兴趣并且在个人健康和进化适应性方面很重要的是激素的信息内容。在神经科学中，自由能原理是一种解释大脑如何推断当前和未来环境状态的概念，它可以作为解决信息如何在糖皮质激素等激素中实例化的指南。在这里，我们为研究激素如何编码和细胞如何对糖皮质激素中的信息作出反应提供了一些想法和有希望的选择。