Cumulative trauma, emotion reactivity and salivary cytokine response following acute stress among healthy women.

This study furthers understanding of how trauma exposure may be connected to the development and maintenance of poor health by focusing on cytokines, tightly regulated proteins of the immune system. Cytokine responses to acute stress have been associated with the onset of poorer mental health in physically healthy women. The present study examined how two factors recently associated with cytokine reactivity –cumulative trauma and emotion reactivity– are associated with salivary cytokine reactivity among healthy women. Seventy-one women, screened to be physically and mentally healthy, completed a laboratory acute stress paradigm and self-report measures of state emotion and trauma exposure. Participants were primarily White/European-American, with a mean age of 23. The majority of participants reported experiencing at least one potentially traumatic event, with a mean of five. Saliva samples were taken 10 min before (i.e., baseline) and 35 min after the onset of a 10-min stressor, a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test. State negative and positive emotion were measured at baseline and after the stressor. Cumulative trauma was not associated with changes in IL-1β, IL-10 or IL1β/IL10 or changes in emotion. Declines in positive emotion correlated with increases in IL-1β. Changes in both negative and positive emotion together were not related to cytokine responses. Given that this sample was healthy, despite high levels of trauma exposure, this may represent a resilient sample. Recommendations for future research are discussed, including measurement of trauma and of emotion. This study adds to the small but growing literature examining how trauma may connect to cytokines, and ultimately, the development and maintenance of poor health

The effect of acute stress on salivary markers of inflammation: a systematic review protocol

Abstract Background There is an increasing interest in the ability to non-invasively assess biological markers of stress. Measures of inflammation following exposure to acute stress have been assessed in saliva, but a systematic review and meta-analysis of the reliability of changes in response to stress has not been conducted. The proposed review aims to update and extend a prior review of this literature by performing a systematic review and meta-analysis, conducting moderator analyses, summarizing and reviewing best practices, and providing recommendations for future research. Methods and analysis The adopted search strategy will involve the electronic databases PubMed, PsycINFO, and Embase. We will include the articles identified by a 2015 narrative review on a similar topic, as well as use reference treeing to identify additional potentially relevant articles. Identified articles will be independently screened by title and abstract. The full text of potentially relevant articles will then be retrieved and read for full inclusion criteria. Data will be extracted, and random-effects meta-analyses will be conducted in R for articles determined to meet all inclusion criteria. The primary outcome will be the magnitude of changes in inflammatory biomarkers following acute stress exposure, as indicated by Cohen’s d. Participant psychosocial or demographic (e.g., age, gender/sex, race/ethnicity, salivary flow rate, oral health status, health status) and methodological (e.g., stressor type, sample timing, assay technique, sample collection method, study quality) moderators of this response also will be examined using meta-regression. Discussion This systematic review will synthesize the evidence regarding salivary markers of inflammation in response to acute stress. We anticipate variation across studies but hypothesize that salivary markers of inflammation will increase in response to acute stress. The evidence obtained for this study will help guide future research by providing guidelines for the design and measurement of studies assessing salivary inflammation in response to acute stress. Findings will be disseminated with a peer-reviewed manuscript and an international conference presentation

Suppress or accept? A pilot study to evaluate the effect of coping strategies on ERN amplitude among individuals with obsessive-compulsive traits

Intrusive thoughts are characteristic of psychological disorders; attempts to cope can become maladaptive perpetuating the problem (e.g., thought suppression), while others can provide long-term symptoms relief (e.g., acceptance). Although emerging research begins to explore the neural correlates of these strategies in healthy population, it is important to explore these strategies in populations more likely to naturally attempt to use such strategies (clinical symptoms). The present study explored if the use of cognitive strategies to manage intrusive cognitions would be differentially reflected in psychophysiological measures (i.e., error-related negativity) of individuals characterized by obsessive-compulsive symptoms -a group commonly associated with suppression efforts- relative to a low OC control. 67 participants with high and low OC symptoms were randomly assigned to cognitive strategy (suppression or acceptance). Participants watched an emotion-eliciting video clip and used the assigned cognitive strategy while performing the Stroop task. EEG data was collected. Consistent with well-established and emerging literature, ERN was enhanced in individuals with high OC symptoms and a marginal effect of thought-control strategy was observed, such that ERN amplitude was reduced in the suppression condition and greater for the acceptance condition. Uniquely, the study expanded on emerging literature by exploring whether the relationship between ERN and cognitive strategies was moderated by OC level. Although results were not conclusive, these preliminary findings represent an important first step to study effects of suppression and acceptance on the ERN in a sample characterized by clinically-relevant symptoms and overall encourage further exploration

Exploring the Longitudinal Clustering of Lifestyle Behaviors, Social Determinants of Health, and Depression

Lifestyle behaviors such as exercise, sleep, smoking, diet, and social interaction are associated with depression. This study aimed to model the complex relationships between lifestyle behaviors and depression and among the lifestyle behaviors. Data from three waves of the Midlife in the United States study were used, involving 6898 adults. Network models revealed associations between the lifestyle behaviors and depression, with smoker status being strongly associated with depression. Depression, smoker status, age, time, and exercise were some of the most central components of the networks. Future lifestyle intervention research might prioritize specific behaviors based on these associations and centrality indices