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Acute psychosocial stress: Does the emotional stress response correspond with physiological responses?
Abstract
Most stress experiences are accompanied by physiological and psychological responses. Laboratory stressors such as the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) induce reliable stress responses, which are mainly assessed for biological parameters such as cortisol. The associations between physiological and psychological responses to the TSST have been rarely investigated and are addressed in this review. Up to August 2011, 358 studies were published in PubMed examining the impact of the TSST (71%) or variations of the protocol. A total of 49 studies were considered based on the following three inclusion criteria: (1) exposure to the standard TSST or slightly modified TSST versions, (2) at least one assessment of subjective emotional stress experience before, during or after the TSST, (3) reported associations between acute physiological and emotional stress measures. Significant correlations between cortisol responses and perceived emotional stress variables were found in approximately 25% of the studies. Our descriptive analysis revealed various essential elements that potentially contribute to this apparent dissociation, reaching from differing assessment approaches and methodological features of the stress protocols to possible mediating factors and interindividual differences in the degree of psychophysiological correspondence.
... The difference in findings between self-reported and physiologically assessed stress levels has been previously reported in the literature in about half of the studies examining the impact of canine-assisted interventions on stress [25]. Furthermore, significant correlations between cortisol or heart rate reactivity and perceived stress have only been found in about 25% of TSST studies [26]. These differences could be due to factors including cognitive coping strategies, varying speeds of reactivity across stress response types, or social desirability bias impacting survey responses [26]. ...
... Furthermore, significant correlations between cortisol or heart rate reactivity and perceived stress have only been found in about 25% of TSST studies [26]. These differences could be due to factors including cognitive coping strategies, varying speeds of reactivity across stress response types, or social desirability bias impacting survey responses [26]. ...
... This single question has been found to be a valid method to determine physical activity levels when compared to accelerometer data [47,48]. The phase of the menstrual cycle was determined by asking participants the first date of their most recent menstrual cycle, with participants classified into three groups: N/A (those who do not menstruate), follicular (days 0-14), and luteal (days [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. Participants were also asked to sign a form verifying that they had followed the instructions regarding tasks to avoid prior to participating in the experiment (e.g., limiting exercise and alcohol consumption; see "Procedure" for further details). ...
Acute and chronic stress each have physical manifestations in the human body that can lead to many negative health impacts. Today, reported stress levels worldwide are at an all-time high, spurring the search for non-pharmaceutical interventions to maintain healthy stress levels. In this study, we examined whether a pet dog’s presence influences healthy adults’ acute stress responses as assessed through self-reports, heart rate, plasma cortisol, and salivary alpha-amylase. Participating pet dog owners were randomly assigned to undergo the Trier Social Stress Test either with their pet dog or alone. While there was no group difference in perceived anxiety levels, participants undergoing the acute psychological stressor with their pet dogs present had significantly lower heart rates, lower plasma cortisol responses, and higher salivary alpha-amylase responses than people without their dogs. Those who participated without their dogs had a statistically flat alpha-amylase response, which is typically associated with extreme or pathological stress. These findings extend the potential effects of pet dogs beyond merely lowering their owner’s stress levels to maintaining a healthier, balanced response across the sympathoadrenal medullary axis and hypothalamic–pituitary-adrenal axis.
... Discrepancy or dissociation between perceived and actual physiological changes is well-known in the literature of interoception (for a review, see Köteles, 2024). In the context of acute stress response, discrepancy between perceived stress and various aspects of the physiological stress response (cortisol level, HR) is also reported (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004;Nagy et al., 2024). In contrast to many interoceptive receptors, however, stimulation of CT-afferents readily reaches conscious awareness; its conscious representation primarily relies on the affective-evaluative aspect of the sensation (Björnsdotter et al., 2010). ...
... For HR, although the frequentist analysis showed a significant negative correlation, the association was very weak; for HRV indices, Bayesian analysis uniformly indicated the superiority of null hypothesis, i.e., the lack of association. A dissociation between perceived and physiological stress response (i.e., sympathetic activation) was reported in two reviews (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004). In accordance with these findings our results suggest that the association between pleasantness and parasympathetic activation is not clear-cut; perhaps there is a threshold in pleasantness which triggers physiological changes. ...
... In contrast, self-perceived psychological measures of the participants' stress responses are often not considered. 13 There is strong evidence linking psychological stress to disease risk; however, psychological stress has not been included as often as it should be in models of health. 14 Considering the many ways cognitive and emotional processes can affect the physiological pathways that are influenced by stress, 13 it is critical that perceived psychological measures are considered in the context of stress response. ...
... 13 There is strong evidence linking psychological stress to disease risk; however, psychological stress has not been included as often as it should be in models of health. 14 Considering the many ways cognitive and emotional processes can affect the physiological pathways that are influenced by stress, 13 it is critical that perceived psychological measures are considered in the context of stress response. Epidemiological studies showed that perceiving stress over long periods of time, such as ELS, was associated with worse mental and physical health. ...
Objective
The study aimed to evaluate negative and positive emotional responses to acute psychological stress in individuals with early life stress (ELS).
Methods
One hundred sixty-one participants from the Birmingham community in Alabama completed the study and were stratified into 2 groups based on measurements of ELS using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and a confirmatory clinical interview. Acute psychological stress, that is, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), was administered, and emotional responses were measured using the Visual Analogue Scale. Comparisons utilized chi-square for categorical variables and t-test for continuous variables. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was applied to compare the 2 groups after controlling for confounding variables. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis was used to investigate predictive power of variables for emotional responses to the TSST.
Results
Participants with ELS experienced less pleasantness at the baseline (P = .02), and 1 minute (P = .04), but not 90 minutes time points compared to the non-ELS group. Participants in the ELS group also reported higher anxiety at baseline (P = .003), and 90 minutes (P = .04) post-TSST. Data analysis showed the effect of time on emotional responses during the TSST. Different emotional responses, including pleasantness, anxiety, fatigue, and vigor, were able to be predicted by ELS severity.
Conclusion
Our data demonstrates that individuals with ELS presented different positive and negative emotional responses when exposed to acute psychological stress. Our findings may be useful for clinicians who work with individuals with ELS. Our findings also highlight the importance of recognizing emotional responses and of building up resilience in response to acute stress.
... This decrease in alpha power is thought to be connected to elevated cortical activity, which is indicative of the brain's inhibitory control system, which plays a supportive role in coping with stress. A condition of increased alertness and vigilance brought on by psychosocial stress activates the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), increases cortical activity, and lowers frontal alpha power [42]. ...
... Alpha power has been consistently observed to decrease in response to psychosocial stress across various stress phases, which has been linked to increased cortical activity, reflecting an inhibitory control system in the brain that helps individuals cope with stressors. Indeed, psychosocial stress induces a state of heightened arousal and vigilance, activating the HPA axis and leading to greater cortical activity, which in turn reduces frontal alpha power [42]. Moreover, research suggests that individuals practicing mindfulness exhibit enhanced top-down control over sensory alpha, allowing for better regulation of cognitive performance, particularly in tasks requiring working memory [41,52]. ...
Background:
In stressful situations, to overcome unpleasant emotions, individuals try to manage stress through emotion regulation strategies such as cognitive reappraisal, interoception, and mindfulness.
Method:
26 healthy adults underwent a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (named the Social Stress Test, SST) while their electrophysiological (EEG) activity was monitored. Participants also completed self-report questionnaires prior to this, including the Five-Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA), Emotional Regulation of Others and Self (EROS), and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI). Three brain regions of interest (ROIs) were considered in the EEG data processing: frontal, temporo-central, and parieto-occipital. Correlational analyses were performed between psychometric scales and EEG band power spectral values for each ROI.
Results:
The results showed positive correlations between interoceptive awareness, mindfulness, and high-frequency EEG bands (beta, alpha, gamma) over frontal ROI, indicating enhanced cognitive processing and emotional regulation. Conversely, emotion regulation and empathy measures correlated positively with low-frequency EEG bands (delta, theta), associated with improved social cognition and top-down regulatory processes.
Conclusions:
These findings suggest that EEG correlations of the stress response are connected to emotion regulation mechanisms, emphasizing the importance of body state awareness in managing stress and emotions for overall well-being and quality of life.
... Finally, our use of hair cortisol, a unique approach in social policy research, provides unique insights distinct from psychological stress measures. Notably, this method offers additional information, and aligns with past findings showing the lack of correlation between subjective and objective stress measures (31)(32)(33)(34)(35). ...
... This, coupled with the cortisol results, suggests that individuals may not be fully aware of the stress they experienced during the campaign. To date, there is only scarce evidence for a considerable association of subjective and objective stress measures, which might be attributable to method bias (e.g., confounding) and/or asynchrony of their temporal changes (34,35). Finally, the study's design with only three-time points made it challenging to differentiate between the campaign's effects and the vote outcome's impact. ...
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ+) individuals encounter persistent structural inequalities and discrimination that can lead to detrimental psychological and physiological health outcomes. Amid evolving legal landscapes, little attention has been directed toward understanding the physiological health effects of societal shifts on these communities. This study aims to explore the impact of a national marriage equality vote and associated debates on psychological and biological stress among LGBTIQ+ individuals and cisgender, heterosexual, endosex individuals (termed cis-heterosexual) in Switzerland. We gathered longitudinal survey and biological data collected in hair samples among LGBTIQ+ and cis-heterosexual individuals before, during, and after the 2021 national vote (survey data: N T1T2 = 954; N T2T3 = 880; biological data: N T1T2 = 393; N T2T3 = 354). Preregistered analyses reveal a notable increase in biological stress levels (i.e., cortisol and cortisone levels), but not perceived stress, among both LGBTIQ+ as well as cis-heterosexual individuals who were close to them during the campaign. Results further point out the negative impacts of the campaign against marriage equality (i.e., no-campaign) on LGBTIQ+ individuals’ biological stress levels as well as on those of their allies. These effects were, however, moderated by exposure to the campaign for marriage equality (i.e., yes-campaign), indicating the powerful buffering effects of the yes-campaign on the impact of discrimination on individuals’ health. However, these positive effects appear to come at a cost, potentially impacting the well-being of individuals engaged in advocating for the yes-campaign. This research underscores the lasting impact of political campaigns on individuals’ health.
... A longer training duration might have yielded more pronounced subjective stress reduction effects. Finally, it is important to acknowledge that subjective stress measures and objective stress measures often exhibit only moderate correlations even at baseline (72)(73)(74). Thus, self-rated stress effects may not always align with physiological stress responses in training contexts as well (75). ...
... While cortisol levels serve as objective biomarkers of stress (73), subjective experiences of stress can be influenced by a range of factors beyond physiological reactivity (76). Psychological factors, individual differences in stress perception, and the complex interplay between mind and body could contribute to the discrepancies between subjective and physiological stress responses observed in this study (74,77). Future studies will have to further explore the relationship between different subjective and objective stress-related measures at baseline (75) and after training. ...
Introduction
Stress-related diseases pose significant health risks and show wide prevalence. Empirical evidence suggests that contemplative practices, such as socio-emotional dyadic mental exercises, hold promise in mitigating the adverse effects of stress and promoting psychosocial well-being. This study aimed to investigate the differential effects of two online contemplative mental training programs on the psychosocial stress response: the first involved classic mindfulness practices, while the second incorporated a socio-emotional dyadic approach known as Affect Dyad.
Methods
The study was conducted as part of the longitudinal CovSocial project’s phase 2 in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. 140 individuals participated in the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST), where the psychosocial stress response was assessed with cortisol saliva samples and subjective stress questionnaires in a cross-sectional design after the active training groups finished their intervention period. Participants were randomly assigned to the socio-emotional training group, mindfulness-based training group, or a control group that did not receive any training. Both training programs consisted of a ten-week intervention period with a daily 12-minute app-based mental training practice and weekly 2-hour online coaching sessions led by mental training teachers.
Results
Results showed that the socio-emotional Dyad group but not the mindfulness-based group exhibited significantly lower cortisol levels at 10, 20, 30, and 40 minutes after the stressor as well as lower total cortisol output compared to the control group during the TSST, indicating a reduced hormonal stress response to a social stressor. Subjective markers did not show differences between the three groups.
Discussion
These findings indicate that the daily socio-emotional dyadic practice, which emphasizes non-judgmental and empathic listening as well as the acceptance of challenging emotions in the presence of others within one's daily life context, may serve as a protective factor against the adverse effects of psychosocial stress triggered by the fear of negative social judgments. Given the high prevalence of stress-related diseases, such online mental training programs based on dyadic practices may thus represent an efficient and scalable approach for stress reduction.
... heart rate variability). Previous studies have already indicated that physiological responses to stress, such as decreased heart rate variability and increased cortisol release (Rensing et al., 2006), are often not systematically related to an individual's perception of stress (for an overview, see Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Minkley et al., 2021). Campbell and Ehlert (2012) discuss various factors, including different measurement protocols, mediating factors, and interindividual differences in the degree of correspondence between physiological and psychological responses as possible reasons for this inconsistency. ...
... Previous studies have already indicated that physiological responses to stress, such as decreased heart rate variability and increased cortisol release (Rensing et al., 2006), are often not systematically related to an individual's perception of stress (for an overview, see Campbell & Ehlert, 2012;Minkley et al., 2021). Campbell and Ehlert (2012) discuss various factors, including different measurement protocols, mediating factors, and interindividual differences in the degree of correspondence between physiological and psychological responses as possible reasons for this inconsistency. In addition to these more formal reasons, they also suggest the concept that physiological and psychological stress responses may represent different aspects of the overall stress response. ...
The understanding of complex molecular representations is crucial for comprehending molecular scientific phenomena, but many students struggle with them. Therefore, we investigated the effectiveness of short written clues in dealing with molecular representations, specifically their impact on performance, self-efficacy, and stress reactions. A total of 136 secondary school students participated and engaged in tasks involving complex molecular representations in a prior knowledge test and a main test. Half of the students received clues, while the other half did not. The results showed that students who received clues performed significantly better on the test, highlighting their effectiveness for improving performance. However, the clues had no influence on self-efficacy, which remained moderate for both groups. Physiological stress responses (heart rate variability) indicated that students without clues experienced increased stress during the main test, whereas those with clues maintained lower stress levels like those in the prior knowledge test. Subjective stress levels decreased for both groups from the prior knowledge test to the main test, with students who received clues tending to report lower stress levels. In conclusion, short written clues were found to be effective in improving performance and reducing stress levels when dealing with complex molecular representations, although long-term interventions may be required to enhance self-efficacy.
... Considering the psychological level, stressful situations increase perceived stress and state anxiety [9,10]. Interestingly, the aforementioned physiological and psychological aspects of acute stress often dissociate, i.e., do not correspond to each other [9,11,12]. ...
Background
Proprioceptive accuracy is an important aspect of motor functioning thus understanding how the stress response affects it can broaden our knowledge about the effects of stress on motor performance. There has been published only one quasi-experimental study on this topic to date, reporting a negative association between stress and proprioceptive accuracy. The aim of the present study was to explore whether the stress response influences proprioceptive accuracy in a randomized and controlled experimental setting.
Method
Participants (Mage = 20.4 yrs, SDage = 1.91 yrs) were randomly assigned to a stress (n = 29) and a control (n = 28) group. Psychological stress was induced via an online quiz involving time pressure and instant feedback on performance. Participants’ perceived (state anxiety) and physiological (heart rate, heart rate variability, skin conductance level) stress response and proprioceptive accuracy (the active and passive version of the Joint Position Reproduction test for the elbow joint) were measured before and after the experimental manipulation.
Results
The quiz substantially increased only participants’ perceived stress however, proprioceptive accuracy was not impacted by the experimental manipulation.
Conclusion
Perceived stress does not impact proprioceptive accuracy.
... Furthermore, only one study included both HPA axis and ANS reactivity, and none of them included measures of both physiological stress systems and psychological stress reactivity combined. This combined methodological approach is recommended since, as previously shown, patterns of reactivity may differ between both physiological stress systems (e.g., Messerli-Bürgy et al. 2019;Hanke et al. 2023), as well as between physiological and psychological stress parameters (Campbell and Ehlert 2012). Thirdly, it is noteworthy that none of the studies considered interactions of acute and chronic stress. ...
Physical exercise has the potential to influence stress reactivity, but experimental data in children are lacking. The main objective of this randomized cross‐over study was to investigate the effect of a moderately‐intense exercise bout on children's physiological and psychological reactions to a subsequent acute psychosocial stressor. On two separate laboratory appointments, 114 children (62 female) aged between 10 and 13 years completed the Trier Social Stress Test for Children (TSST‐C) and a nonstressful control task, respectively. Fifty‐seven participants engaged in an exercise bout prior to the conditions and were matched (based on sex, age, and everyday moderate‐to‐vigorous intensity physical activity) to a control group, who did not engage in a physically demanding task. Stress reactivity was assessed using saliva cortisol and heart rate (calculated area under the response curve) and self‐reported anxiety (post minus pre score). Repeated measures analyses of variance revealed main effects of condition, indicating higher stress reactivity in the TSST‐C compared to control for cortisol, heart rate, and anxiety. There were no significant interactions of group and condition. However, a three‐way interaction involving chronic stress indicated favorable cortisol reactivity patterns after acute exercise compared to the resting condition, but only for participants with higher levels of chronic stress. While results indicate no generalizable effect of acute exercise on children's physiological and psychological reactivity to acute psychosocial stress, acute exercise seems to transiently counteract chronic stress‐induced hyperreactivity of the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal axis.
... For instance, measurement differences include when HR was assessed in relation to the cessation of exercise and stressor onset, alongside the exercise intensity utilized [53]. As for acute exercise not buffering psychological responses, this may be due to decoupling of physiological and psychological responses [54] and the notion that acute exercise may not modulate the appraisal of the stressor, which is intricately linked to subsequent psychological reactivity [55]. One alternative acute intervention that has showed promise for reducing physiological and psychological responses to stress is mindfulness [56]. ...
Post-secondary students experience acute stressors daily. Acute stress has been associated with poor cognitive and learning outcomes. Prior work has demonstrated a single bout of exercise can attenuate acute stress responses. The present study examined the effects of a single 30-minute bout of high intensity aerobic exercise on multidimensional stress reactivity and learning-related outcomes. Forty participants were randomized to either engaging in an exercise bout or seated rest. Participants were then exposed to the Trier Social Stress Test followed by a 20-minute video lecture. The video lecture contained embedded mind wandering probes. Acute exercise did not attenuate stress responses, however promoted greater on-task behaviour (i.e., less mind wandering) and improved lecture comprehension scores. Notably, state anxiety was positively associated with mind wandering and mind wandering was negatively associated with lecture comprehension. Collectively, examining the role of acute interventions that reduce state anxiety may promote favourable learning outcomes in young adults.
... Parental reactivity and diurnal cortisol covariation scores were z-standardized to assure interpretability of the intercept and to control for multicollinearity. We did not test for influences of diurnal cortisol covariation on adolescent's subjective stress because physiological and psychological stress markers have shown little to no covariance (Ali and Nater, 2020;Campbell and Ehlert, 2012;Engert, Kok, et al., 2018;Schlotz et al., 2008), particularly over different contexts (i.e., in the lab and in daily life; Wesarg-Menzel et al., 2024). ...
... Future studies should evaluate gender differences in selfcompassion and stress reactivity using objective measures of stress reactivity, such as cortisol or blood pressure. This may be particularly important given that prior research has shown discrepancies between self-report and physiological measures of stress reactivity (Campbell & Ehlert, 2012). The current study was conducted as a pilot RCT of a brief mindfulness intervention study with a relatively small sample size. ...
Objectives
Mindfulness practice and trait self-compassion are promising coping resources to buffer against emotional stress reactivity and promote stress recovery. The potential variation in stress-buffering effects across gender is understudied. This study examined whether stress-buffering effects of a brief 20-min mindfulness practice and trait self-compassion vary by gender in a pilot randomized controlled trial.
Method
Undergraduates (n = 55; 44% women, 56% men) were randomized to a brief mindfulness practice or control group activity and then immediately underwent the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). We conducted repeated-measures ANCOVAs to examine whether there were effects of the mindfulness intervention with and without gender as a moderator (primary aim). We then examined whether trait self-compassion buffered against stress reactivity and aided in recovery while controlling for condition assignment, and if these effects varied by gender (secondary aim).
Results
Gender significantly moderated the effect of the mindfulness practice. Men in the mindfulness condition reported reduced stress reactivity compared to men in the control condition, while there was no difference in stress reactivity across conditions for women. Gender also significantly moderated the effects of trait self-compassion such that women with higher self-compassion reported reduced stress reactivity and better recovery relative to women with lower self-compassion. Conversely and unexpectedly, men with higher self-compassion reported increased stress reactivity relative to men with lower self-compassion.
Conclusions
Different coping resources (i.e., brief mindfulness practice and trait self-compassion) may be differentially effective across gender, indicating that future interventions may need to be tailored by gender.
Preregistration
This study was not preregistered.
... A question in the literature remains as to whether HPA non-responsivity reflects a lack of experienced distress to the TSST (i.e., the TSST was not successful at eliciting stress responses in certain youth). Following Campbell and Ehlert (2012), we created pretest (α = .85) and posttest (α = .98) ...
Despite the added value of multisystem (relative to traditional single-system) approaches for characterizing biological processes linked to risk for psychopathology (e.g., neuroendocrine stress responsivity; Buss et al., 2019; Quas et al., 2014), no study to date has evaluated whether multisystem processes may serve as viable biological targets of intervention. Utilizing a multiple-levels-of-analysis approach (Cicchetti & Dawson, 2002), this person-centered study examined whether stress-adapted patterns of hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic-adrenomedullary (SAM) system co-activation were amenable to change following the Building a Strong Identity and Coping Skills intervention (BaSICS; Wadsworth et al., 2022). Preadolescents exposed to concentrated poverty ( n = 112, M age = 11.78 years, 57.1% female, 54% assigned to intervention; 40% Hispanic, 63% Black, 20% White) completed questionnaires and the Trier Social Stress Test at both pre- and posttest. Multitrajectory modeling of cortisol and alpha-amylase levels identified four pretest and posttest HPA-SAM co-activation profiles. At pretest, youth exhibiting Asymmetric Nos. 1 & 2 HPA-SAM co-activation reported greater maladjustment relative to youth with Symmetric Nos. 1 & 2 co-activation. Youth exhibiting Asymmetric No. 1 co-activation at pretest were more likely to exhibit Symmetric No. 1 co-activation following BaSICS relative to control. Findings highlight the potential of BaSICS to restore neuroendocrine stress response function in impoverished youth, pointing to HPA–SAM co-activation as a potential biological target of preventive intervention in this population.
... Thus, the timing of these assessments may have limited the sensitivity to detect effects of our stress manipulation. Despite this, previous research using other stress manipulation techniques (TSST) have demonstrated a relationship between cortisol responses and emotional responses [112]. It will be useful for future work to consider inclusion and timing of such measures to expand our understanding of the correspondence of HPA axis and emotional responses when using the threat of shock paradigm. ...
Stress carries diverse implications for perceptual, cognitive, and affective functions. One population particularly susceptible to acute stress-induced cognitive changes are individuals with high-stress jobs (e.g., military personnel). These individuals are often tasked with maintaining peak cognitive performance, including memory, spatial navigation, and decision-making under threatening and uncertain conditions. Previous research has separately examined decision-making under conditions of stress or uncertainty (i.e., ambiguous discrimination between friends and foes). However, questions remain about how operationally relevant stress impacts memory encoding and recall, or spatial learning, as well as how uncertainty may impact decision-making during stress. To address this gap, we examined the influence of a military-relevant emotional stressor on a series of cognitive tasks including recognition memory task (RMT), spatial orienting task (SOT), and shoot/don’t shoot decision making (DMT). To examine the effects of uncertainty and stress we varied the stimulus clarity in the DMT. We utilized threat of shock (TOS) as a high-stakes outcome for decision errors. TOS increased sympathetic arousal but did not affect subjective emotional or HPA responses. TOS influenced decision times and confidence ratings in the DMT, but not response sensitivity or response bias. DMT performance varied by stimulus clarity (uncertainty) but did not differ between stress conditions. TOS did not influence recognition memory or spatial orienting. In sum, high levels of stress and uncertainty characterize military operations, yet stress experienced in military contexts can be difficult to induce in laboratory settings. We discuss several avenues for future research, including methodological considerations to better assess the magnitude and specificity of emotional stress-induction techniques in Soldiers.
... This knowledge deficit limits our ability to fully comprehend the quantifiable effects of active travel on children. Moreover, physiological reactions can offer vital insights into children's psychological respectively emotional states, such as perceived risk, stress and happiness during travel [22][23][24]. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the physiological responses associated with children's everyday mobility, particularly in relation to varying levels of active travel in terms of time-based usage intensity. ...
Background
The active travel concept has gained recognition as an effective method to enhance physical activity in children’s everyday mobility. Yet, there is a notable gap of quantitative evidence on its direct impacts, especially regarding physiological outcomes that can concretely demonstrate its influences on physical intensity and overall health of children.
Methods
This study investigates the effects of active travel on children, focusing on trip-level physiological responses, specifically heart rate. Through a mixed survey design, we obtained a repeated-measures dataset from a cohort of 73 children (average age 13) across three Austrian secondary schools, each observed for 7 days. By applying mixed effects modelling approach, both fixed and random effects to children’s heart rates were explored.
Results
According to results from developed mixed linear models (maximum R² = 0.22), it revealed a significant positive association between active travel mode(s) engagement and heightened physiological responses (Low, Medium and High active level of trip compare to None: β = 1.81, 5.01 and 8.34, t-value = 4.70, 10.29 and 21.34), indicating that increased usage of active travel modes led to elevated heart rate values. Additionally, subjective perceptions also played an important role in influencing children’s physiological responses. Feelings of exhausted, anxiety, and stress contributing to a higher heart rate (β = 14.79, 16.69 and 1.99, t-value = 20.42, 5.67 and 3.0), while unhappiness was associated with a lower heart rate (β = -5.96, t-value = -14.62). Effects of social interactions were also found during the trip. The presence of adults was associated with a calming effect (β = -1.92, t-value = -5.72), whereas solo travel resulted in lower heart rate compared to travel with peers (β = -1.95, t-value = -6.59).
Conclusion
Our article innovatively employs mixed survey methods and heart rate data to quantitatively demonstrate the positive association between engagement in active travel modes and heightened physiological responses in children, elucidating the intricate interplay of subjective perceptions and social interactions during trips, thus offering valuable insights into the health implications of active travel at a trip level. Future research will keep on leveraging survey and experimental methods.
... This effect, which differs from the selfreport results, coheres with research typically showing noncorrespondence between physiological and self-reported measures of stress. In fact, Campbell and Ehlert (2012) documented noncorrespondence in 75% of the examined studies, perhaps due to differences in the measures' reliance on conscious attention and the measures' dependence on the motivation to give accurate self-reports. ...
The cultural construal of leadership as masculine impedes women’s attainment of leader roles. This research examined whether adding feminine demands to a leader role relieved the greater stress experienced by women than men in a job interview for a leadership position and considered the processes that mediated women’s less favourable interview outcomes. In a hiring simulation, management students (N = 209; 112 women, 97 men) interviewed for a leader role framed by either stereotypically feminine or masculine role requirements. As shown by the stress biomarker salivary cortisol, the feminine role framing alleviated women’s, but not men’s, physiological stress response during the interview. However, under both masculine and feminine role framing, women, compared with men, reported lesser fit, expected poorer interview performance, appraised greater threat relative to challenge, and evaluated their performance less favourably, as did external raters. An additional vignette study (N = 305; 189 women, 111 men, 5 diverse) found that the feminine role framing increased the leader role’s communal demands but still conveyed strong agentic demands not different from those of the masculine role. In conclusion, although a feminine role framing alleviated women’s physiological stress response, it did not change their less favourable outcomes, as indicated by participants’ self-reports and others’ reports.
Supplementary Information
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11199-024-01509-7.
... Psychoendocrine covariance is the correspondence between subjective psychological and endocrine stress markers. In stress research, we typically see a lack of this covariance (for a metaanalysis, see Campbell & Ehlert, 2012), likely due to known biases in self-report data (e.g. social desirability, extreme responding). ...
Stress is a wide-spread phenomenon and associated with various detrimental health effects. A significant resource for stress buffering is social support. How social support is perceived, however, depends on a multitude of individual and interindividual factors. This study aimed to explore the stress-reducing properties of relationship-inherent variables. We investigated the association of attachment style, relationship quality and dyadic coping, with subjective and physiological stress responses to a psychosocial laboratory stressor in romantic partners. Seventy-nine couples participated, with one partner ("target") undergoing the Trier Social Stress Test and the other ("observer") observing the situation. Besides examining the role of targets' relationship variables, we also assessed the link between observers' relationship variables and targets' stress reactivity. We found that both targets' and observers' insecure-avoidant attachment scores were associated with targets' stress reactivity. In detail, while targets' insecure-avoidant attachment scores were negatively associated with targets' subjective stress experience, observers' insecure-avoidant attachment scores were positively associated with targets' heart rate reactivity. Further, higher insecure-avoidant attachment scores linked to lower psycho-endocrine covariance, i.e., a lower accordance between self-reported and cortisol stress responding. On the one hand, these data may suggest that under stress, insecure-avoidantly attached individuals suppress their experience of stress to preserve a sense of independence as part of their deactivating attachment strategy. The presence of an insecure-avoidantly attached partner during a stressful experience, on the other hand, seems to be a stressor rather than a source of support. Long-term, an insecure-avoidantly attached partner may negatively impact an individual's stress-related health and wellbeing.
... Today, we know that the mental state is crucial and strongly influences people's performance 19 and health 20 . Most previous studies on stress have described differences between subjective and objective parameters 21 , e.g. no significant correlations were found between cortisol levels and the perception of stress 18 . ...
In our study, we suggested participants to feel strong during hypnosis and tested if that affected their handgrip strength. Handgrip strength is measured via a hand dynamometer and indicates muscle strength and participants’ general medical condition. In addition, we obtained subjective ratings of strength via a visual analogue scale. We developed a hypnosis intervention to increase strength and tied the feeling of strength to a post-hypnotic power anchor. Participants could activate this power anchor afterwards to feel strong again. We also had a randomized control group that read Arnold Schwarzenegger’s autobiography instead of hypnosis. We tested the effect of the post-hypnotic power anchor on two experimental sessions separated by one week. Our data show that participants in the hypnosis group felt significantly stronger when they activated their post-hypnotic power anchor compared to their own baseline, both in the first and second experimental session. In addition, participants in the hypnosis group showed a significant increase in objective handgrip strength compared to their own baseline one week after the hypnosis session. We conclude that our hypnosis intervention primarily improved strength perception and secondary objective handgrip strength. Our intervention can help patients to improve their medical condition and athletes to improve their sport performance.
... Inspired by this work, we applied a person-centered approach to characterize multilevel stress response data (self-reported/ experienced stress, observed/expressed stress, physiological stress response) from the TSST in our earlier study of adolescent depression (Bendezú et al., 2022). We aimed to determine whether correspondence (e.g., consistency in the degree and direction of response) across these multilevel indicators of the stress response is common, as may be assumed theoretically (e.g., Campbell & Ehlert, 2012), and whether lower correspondence across levels may be indicative of dysregulation and risk for depression, NSSI, and STB. Results from this work demonstrated that stress responses were best characterized according to four profiles, three with high correspondence across levels (e.g., High Experience, High Expression, High Physiology; Low Experience, Low Expression, Low Physiology; Moderate Experience, Moderate Expression, Moderate Physiology) and one with low correspondence across levels (e.g., High Experience, High Expression, Low Physiology). ...
Dante Cicchetti propelled forward the field of developmental psychopathology by advancing this framework and championing new methods, including emphasizing the central role that multilevel analysis holds for explicating pathways of risk and resilience. His work continues to change the face of existing science. It has also paved the way for the formation of new projects, like the Research Domain Criteria initiative. This paper uses our laboratory’s work on multilevel approaches to studying adolescent depression, non-suicidal self-injury, and suicidal thoughts and behaviors to shine a spotlight on Dr Cicchetti’s contributions. In addition, we review recent developments, ongoing challenges, and promising future directions within developmental psychopathology as we endeavor to carry on the tradition of growth in the field.
... Alternatively, women might be better in coping with stress with regard to vocal emotion recognition. In their review, Campbell and Ehlert (2012) concluded that in only about 25% of the studies, there were associations between cortisol responses and perceived emotional stress variables. Hence, previous studies have shown that although women tend to report more stress and anxiety during and after acute stress exposure than men (Kelly et al., 2008;Kirschbaum et al., 1999;Merz & Wolf, 2016), men tend to have higher physiological stress reactivity than women (Kajantie & Phillips, 2006;Kudielka & Kirschbaum, 2005;Oyola & Handa, 2017;Panagiotakopoulos & Neigh, 2014). ...
It has long been known that stress has detrimental effects on cognition (e.g., Alderson & Novack, 2002; Lupien & Lepage, 2001), most notably documented for memory functions (e.g., Schwabe & Wolf, 2013). Interestingly, less is known about the effects of stress on other cognitive functions including language processing. Here, we have examined the effects of self-reported prolonged stress on recognition of emotional language content with a particular emphasis on gender differences. We tested how well 399 participants with different perceived stress levels recognized emotional voice cues. Findings confirm previous results from the emotional prosody literature by demonstrating that women generally outperform men in the vocal emotion recognition task. Crucially, results also revealed that medium levels of perceived stress impair the ability to detect sadness from voice cues in men but not women. These findings were not modulated by task demands (e.g., speeded response) or better acoustic discrimination abilities in women. Results are in line with the idea that perceived stress has a different impact on men versus women and that women have a higher level of experience in voice sadness recognition, potentially due to their predominant role as primary caretakers.
... (1) In the context of the negative emotionality model, Ocklenburg and colleagues 27 discussed emotion processing under stress to drive alterations of functional hemispheric asymmetries. That is, stress induces negative affect 28 and the right hemisphere is debated to dominate during the processing of negative affect 29 . Likewise, from an evolutionary perspective, a conserved pattern of rightward asymmetries has been proposed to get active in situations that feature novelty, unpredictability, and danger 30 -all key elements of stressors 31 . ...
How stress affects functional hemispheric asymmetries is relevant because stress represents a risk factor for the development of mental disorders and various mental disorders are associated with atypical lateralization. Using three lateralization tasks, we investigated whether functional hemispheric asymmetries in the form of hemispheric dominance for language (verbal dichotic listening task), emotion processing (emotional dichotic listening task), and visuo-spatial attention (line bisection task) were affected by acute stress in healthy adults. One hundred twenty right-handed men and women performed these lateralization tasks in randomized order after exposure to a mild online stressor (i.e., an online variant of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST), TSST-OL) and a non-stressful online control task (friendly TSST-OL, fTSST-OL) in a within-subjects design. Importantly, the verbal and the emotional dichotic listening tasks were presented online whereas the line bisection task was completed in paper–pencil form. During these tasks, we found the expected hemispheric asymmetries, indicating that online versions of both the verbal and the emotional dichotic listening task can be used to measure functional hemispheric asymmetries in language and emotion processing remotely. Even though subjective and physiological markers confirmed the success of the online stress manipulation, replicating previous studies, we found no stress-induced effect on functional hemispheric asymmetries. Thus, in healthy participants, functional hemispheric asymmetries do not seem to change flexibly in response to acute stress.
... These results did not change when recipient affiliation was included in the model as a covariate (result available upon request). This disparity between self-report and autonomic arousal concerning telling a story to a distracted conversational partner conforms and adds to existing evidence of misalignment between self-report and physiological response [56] and calls for further research. ...
Telling a story to a disengaged recipient induces stress and threatens positive self-image. In this study, we investigated whether storytellers with overly positive and fragile self-images (e.g., individuals with grandiose and vulnerable narcissism) would show heightened behavioral, emotional, and psychophysiological reactivity to recipient disengagement.Building on Bavelas, Coates, and Johnson [1] we conducted a conversational experiment instructing the participants to tell about a “close call” experience to a previously unknown co-participant. We modified the co-participant’s level of interactional engagement by asking them either to listen to the story carefully or to simultaneously carry out a counting task that distracted them from the content of the story. We found that the distraction condition was unrelated to the storytellers’ narration performance, but a significant positive association was found between the story-recipients’ observed lack of affiliation and the tellers’ narration performance. The distraction of recipients was also associated with increased self-reported arousal in the tellers, indicating disengagement-induced stress in the tellers. Moreover, tellers higher in grandiose narcissism reacted with higher skin conductance response to disengagement, and vulnerable narcissism was associated with higher heart rate during narration in general. Our experiment thus showed that grandiose narcissists are emotionally sensitive to their co-participants’ disengagement.
... It is well known that there are considerable individual differences in the perception and adaptation to potentially stressful situations, and the body's responses to stressors can vary among individuals, even when experiencing the same stressor. [11], [12]. Besides the genetic and epigenetic alterations, the degrees of the allostatic load and imbalance of the homeostasis, influenced by an individual's experiences of stress encountered during their daily life and shaped by experiences accumulated over an extended period, has been accounted for such heterogeneous response. ...
Stress is a complex factor that simultaneously triggers both psychological and physiological changes in humans. However, research on the relationship between the psychological and physiological aspects of stress has been limited. This study assessed psychological factors related to stress using stress questionnaires and evaluated the physiological aspects of stress reactivity and recovery based on the examined characteristics. We administered questionnaires including Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) to a group of 56 police officers. We also performed stress-inducing experiments, which consisted of the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST) and watching a horror movie. During the stress-inducing experiments, the police officers used wearable sensors to extract heart rate variability (HRV) and we recorded physiological changes through an electrocardiogram (ECG) and electrodermal activity (EDA) signals. We grouped the participants into three groups based on the PSS and CD-RISC scores and analyzed the differences in stress reactivity during stress situations and stress recovery following stress situations among the groups. The results revealed that in the PSS groups, higher perceived stress levels were associated with a decrease in stress reactivity, as indicated by reductions in EDA parameters (SCR std and SCR amplitude) during acute stress situations. In contrast, in the CD-RISC groups, higher resilience levels were associated with increased stress recovery, as indicated by improved recovery abilities in HRV parameters (HR, pNN30, and pNN50) following acute stress situations. The findings of this study provide insights into the physiological changes of the autonomic nervous system based on the psychological factors related to stress in healthy individuals. This research may contribute to future personalized psychological stress assessments.
... Such a correlation between subjective and objective outcomes was not reported in chronic pain patients in most prior stress induction studies [7,17,38], hence, supporting the strength of the SBST paradigm. In the TSST in other contexts, correlations between cortisol responses and subjective stress variables were found in 25% of the studies [1,14]. ...
Maladaptive stress responses may exacerbate chronic widespread pain (CWP) and deserve further investigations. Yet, existing paradigms lack relevance for individuals with this condition. Hence, we developed the Social Benefits Stress Test (SBST), adapted from the Trier Social Stress Test. Instead of a job interview, the patients’ task is to justify their inability to work in front of a simulated medical expert in social insurances. Forty women with a type of CWP: hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and hypermobility spectrum disorders were included. After a 30-min baseline, they had 5 minutes to justify their inability to work, followed by an arithmetic task. After a recovery period, patients were fully debriefed. The psychophysiological stress response was captured using self-reported stress ratings, salivary cortisol and α-amylase, and continuous physiological monitoring including heart rate variability (HRV).
Compared to baseline, the analysis revealed a significant and transient increase in stress ratings during the stress task associated with a peak in salivary biomarkers concentrations. Physiological stress response was reported through HRV during the task with significant increase in heart rate, decrease in high frequency power (HF), increase in low frequency power (LF) and in LF/HF ratio. Stress ratings positively correlated with changes in salivary biomarkers and LF/HF ratio.
The results validate the SBST as a relevant experimental model of social stress in CWP patients as it induced a reproducible moderate stress response across subjective and physiological measures. The SBST opens up for important new studies on the relationship between stress and maintenance of chronic pain.
... 2 Stress elicits not only physiological consequences, but also subjective feelings, including increased anxiety, negative mood state, nervousness, and depression. 3 Exposure to stressors alters activities of the adrenal medulla and cortex and the sympathetic nervous system. 4 The allostasis and reactive scope models propose that physiological mediators, such as hormones, cytokines, and cardiovascular regulation, play a role in preserving the stability of physiological variables during the stress response. ...
Stressful situations lead to change in or damage to the central nervous system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and autonomic function. Techniques for reducing stress such as yoga and mindfulness meditation have been reported to improve emotional regulation and mindfulness skill, as well as stress response. Mindfulness skill relies on intense focus to quiet the mind and bring concentration to the present moment. The present study was a randomized control trial to investigate the effects of an 8-week training program (three 45-minute sessions/week, one session with an instructor and two sessions as home practice) in mindfulness meditation or in yoga on stress and related variables in healthy people. Forty-four healthy participants were randomly allocated to one of three groups: a mindfulness group (n = 16), a yoga group (n = 13), and a control group (n = 15). The yoga training significantly modified heart rate variability, contributing to decreased relative power of the low-frequency band; the relative power of the high-frequency band increased after training. The mindfulness meditation training significantly improved mindfulness skill and concentration performance. In the present study, yoga was associated with increased heart rate variability and mindfulness meditation was associated with an increase in mindfulness skill and concentration performance.
... Most importantly, they are prone to self-report bias [38,39]. This becomes apparent in the fact that subjective and hormonal stress measures often show little to no association "lack of psychoendocrine covariance" [40]. Additionally, definitions and expressions of "feeling stressed" may differ between individuals living in different societies and experiencing different social environments [25]. ...
Political repression beneath the threshold of criminal prosecution is a phenomenon of past and present, predominantly authoritarian, regimes. This so-called quiet repression includes measures such as the limitation of freedom of speech, surveillance of (perceived) political opponents, or the spreading of rumors to socially isolate targets. Such experiences of chronic stress show significant psychological and physiological health consequences in affected individuals. However, societal awareness of quiet repression measures remains limited, hindering victims' access to support and complicating healthcare interventions. In the current paper, we present the design of a study conducted with individuals who endured quiet repression measures in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), a socialist state closely aligned with the former Soviet Union. We discuss the challenges encountered over the course of the study, and present the solutions found. Although every study population has their unique challenges and needs, we wish to inform future sensitive research within the realm of quiet political repression. Given the limited understanding of the phenomenon, there is a pressing need for further investigation aiming to improve acceptance and care for past and future victims.
... Stress research therefore regularly encounters this lack of covariance between different dimensions of the stress system [71][72][73] . Regarding the correlation of cortisol stress resonance with PTSD symptoms, our assessment in earlier studies had been that, compared to the ANS, the delayed cortisol response may be more prone to capture stress resonance and its correlates 16 . ...
Many refugees experience multiple traumatic events, which set them at increased risk to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). To refine interventions aimed at improving refugees’ mental health, a better understanding of the factors modulating vulnerability to war-related trauma is needed. In the present study, we focused on stress resonance as a potential vulnerability factor. Stress resonance reflects the empathic sharing of others’ subjective and physiological stress experience. Sixty-seven participants who came from Arabic-speaking countries and had entered Germany as refugees or migrants took part in an empathic stress test, in which they observed a native German speaker undergo a psychosocial laboratory stressor. Meanwhile, different stress markers (subjective stress, heart rate, heart rate variability, and cortisol release) were simultaneously captured in the stressed targets and passive observers. Moderation analyses did not support our hypothesis that the extent to which someone resonates with others’ stress is a vulnerability factor in the development of PTSD symptoms after trauma exposure. Rather, higher levels of subjective and autonomic stress resonance were main predictors of PTSD symptom severity when controlling for sex, age, and trauma exposure. Our findings suggest that heightened stress resonance may constitute a malleable correlate of PTSD rather than a trait modulating health risk. In the future, efforts should be made to test whether individuals with a history of war-related trauma would benefit from interventions aimed to reduce the tendency to excessively share others’ stress.
... Moreover, the direction of the revealed correlations confirms our categorization of the selected working conditions into work resources and work stressors. Our finding of associations with working conditions being found mainly with the psychological (PSS-4) and not with the biological (hair F) markers of chronic stress is consistent with a constantly revealed divergence between questionnaire-based measures and cortisol with respect to both hair F (for review, refer to the study by Stalder et al [29]) as well as other, more traditional cortisol measures, such as the cortisol awakening response [47], and cortisol (stress) reactivity [48,49]. Study-specific reasons for the lack of significant associations between the selected working conditions and hair F could be the reduced power in these analyses, as only a small number of participants could be included in these analyses, as well as shared method variance between the rating of the selected working conditions and the PSS-4. ...
Background
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly accelerated the need and implementation of digital innovations, especially in medicine.
Objective
To gain a better understanding of the stress associated with digital transformation in physicians, this study aims to identify working conditions that are stress relevant for physicians and differ in dependence on digital transformation. In addition, we examined the potential role of individual characteristics (ie, age, gender, and actual implementation of a digital innovation within the last 3 years) in digitalization-associated differences in these working conditions.
Methods
Cross-sectional web-based questionnaire data of 268 physicians (mean age 40.9, SD 12.3 y; n=150, 56% women) in Germany were analyzed. Physicians rated their chronic stress level and 11 relevant working conditions (ie, work stressors such as time pressure and work resources such as influence on sequence) both before and after either a fictional or real implementation of a relevant digital transformation at their workplace. In addition, a subsample of individuals (60; n=33, 55% women) submitted self-collected hair samples for cortisol analysis.
Results
The stress relevance of the selected working conditions was confirmed by significant correlations with self-rated chronic stress and hair cortisol levels (hair F) within the sample, all of them in the expected direction (P values between .01 and <.001). Multilevel modeling revealed significant differences associated with digital transformation in the rating of 8 (73%) out of 11 working conditions. More precisely, digital transformation was associated with potentially stress-enhancing effects in 6 working conditions (ie, influence on procedures and complexity of tasks) and stress-reducing effects in 2 other working conditions (ie, perceived workload and time pressure). Younger individuals, women, and individuals whose workplaces have implemented digital innovations tended to perceive digitalization-related differences in working conditions as rather stress-reducing.
Conclusions
Our study lays the foundation for future hypothesis-based longitudinal research by identifying those working conditions that are stress relevant for physicians and prone to differ as a function of digital transformation and individual characteristics.
... subjective pain and stress ratings were not associated with markers of repolarization, nor with cortisol levels. indeed, subjective stress perception may not always align with objective physiological or neuroendocrine stress markers (campbell & ehlert, 2012;Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004). temporal misalignment between the subjective and physiological stress assessment may explain this discrepancy. ...
The cold pressor test (CPT) elicits strong cardiovascular reactions via activation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), yielding subsequent increases in heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (BP). However, little is known on how exposure to the CPT affects cardiac ventricular repolarization. Twenty-eight healthy males underwent both a bilateral feet CPT and a warm water (WW) control condition on two separate days, one week apart. During pre-stress baseline and stress induction cardiovascular signals (ECG lead II, Finometer BP) were monitored continuously. Salivary cortisol and subjective stress ratings were assessed intermittently. Corrected QT (QTc) interval length and T-wave amplitude (TWA) were assessed for each heartbeat and subsequently aggregated individually over baseline and stress phases, respectively. CPT increases QTc interval length and elevates the TWA. Stress-induced changes in cardiac repolarization are only in part and weakly correlated with cardiovascular and cortisol stress-reactivity. Besides its already well-established effects on cardiovascular, endocrine, and subjective responses, CPT also impacts on cardiac repolarization by elongation of QTc interval length and elevation of TWA. CPT effects on cardiac repolarization share little variance with the other indices of stress reactivity, suggesting a potentially incremental value of this parameter for understanding psychobiological adaptation to acute CPT stress.
Background and objectives:
Laboratory-based stress inductions are commonly used to elicit acute stress but vary widely in their procedures and effectiveness. We compared the effects of stress induction techniques on measures of two major biological stress systems: the early sympathetic-adrenal-medullary (SAM) and the delayed hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis response.
Design:
A review and meta-analysis to examine the relationship between stress induction techniques on cardiorespiratory and salivary measures of SAM and HPA system activity.
Methods:
A systematic literature search identified 245 reports and 700 effects.
Results:
The overall effect of stress induction techniques on the stress response was moderate (Fisher's zr = 0.44), inducing stronger SAM-related (zr = 0.48) versus HPA-related (zr = 0.37) responses. Three factors moderated these associations: the stress system examined (SAM vs HPA), the specific stress induction technique employed (e.g., Cold Pressor), the physiological sampling time relative to the stress induction, and participant sex. Loud music elicited the most robust SAM-related effects, whereas combined stress inductions elicited the most robust HPA-related effects. Men showed stronger stress responses than women.
Conclusions:
Stress induction techniques variably elicit SAM - and HPA-related responses. Results recommend specific induction techniques for targeting stress systems, highlighting the importance of carefully selecting methodologies in laboratory contexts.
Underground mine workers face many risk factors at work sites that are known to affect the neural system. Observational studies report that these risk factors precede neuromuscular and neurodegenerative disorders, especially in old-age miners. Neurodegenerative disorders have electrophysiological, anatomical, and functional changes long before symptoms are seen in older adults. Therefore, this study investigated whether risks faced by miners at young ages were reflected in electrophysiological signals. Twenty-one underground miners and twentytwo above-ground workers matched with them in terms of age, education, and working duration were included in this study. Participants were recorded with a 20-channel EEG during the resting-state (eyes open and closed; EO-EC) and the perception of the International Affective Picture System Paradigm (IAPS). Time-frequency an alyses were performed for alpha frequency. Rs-EEG results showed a statistically significant difference in alpha power between the EO and EC states in the control group. However, there was no statistical difference in alpha power between these two conditions in the miners. Additionally, we noted a more pronounced decrease in alpha responses in the posterior region during EC in the miners. The group's main effects were statistically significant in event-related alpha responses during emotional responses. Accordingly, event-related alpha responses of the miner group were lower than the control group in terms of both power spectrum and phase-locking. Under ground mine workers are cognitively and emotionally affected by risks in the work environment. Electrophys iological changes seen in young underground workers may be a harbinger of neurodegenerative disorders in miners' old age. Our research findings may lead to the development of occupational neuroscience, social policies, and worker health, which are necessary to improve working conditions for mineworkers.
Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) encompasses a range of emotional, physiological, and behavioral symptoms that occur during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle (MC) and resolve with the onset of menstruation. These symptoms, which can include fatigue, physical pain, anxiety, irritability, and depression, significantly affect women's daily lives and overall well-being. In severe cases, PMS can progress to premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), profoundly impairing quality of life. Despite its prevalence, the neural mechanisms underlying PMS—particularly those related to stress—are not fully understood.This review aims to explore the complex interactions between PMS and stress, with a focus on the hormonal pathways involved. We propose that abnormal stress coping styles and stress reactivity patterns, collectively referred to as stress dysfunction, are crucial factors influencing women's vulnerability to PMS. We examine the relationship between PMS and stress from four perspectives: (1) PMS shares neuroendocrine metabolic circuits based on hormonal fluctuations with stress reactivity systems; (2) there is comorbidity between PMS and stress-related disorders; (3) PMS itself may act as a stressor, potentially creating a negative feedback loop that exacerbates symptoms; and (4) biofeedback training used for stress disorders may be effective in treating PMS. By providing a detailed analysis of stress-related hormonal changes and their effects on PMS, this review offers new insights into the physiological processes underlying PMS. Understanding these interactions may inform the development of targeted interventions and improve the quality of life for women affected by PMS.
Aside from stressors that each of us experience directly, we also share the stress of the people around us. Such empathic stress exists on the psychological and physiological levels, including subjective, sympathetic, parasympathetic and endocrine activation. The objective of this review is to offer an overview of methodology over the past fifteen years of empathic stress research and derive practical considerations for future research endeavors in the field. We used a keyword search strategy in the databases Web of Science, PsycInfo and PubMed to find empathic stress studies published until December 2023, and included 17 studies into our review. The reviewed laboratory studies provide initial yet consistent evidence for the existence of empathic stress across different populations, in intimate and stranger dyads, with direct and virtual contact, across multiple levels of the stress system, and based on diverse statistical analysis methods. We discuss all findings and derive practical considerations for future empathic stress research. The diversity of methods established provides a solid foundation upon which future studies can expand.
Keywords: autonomic nervous system, dyadic measures, empathic stress, experimental design, HPA axis, methodology, stress contagion, stress resonance, stress sharing, systematic review
The associations of suicidality with stress are poorly studied in schizophrenia. The study aimed to determine whether suicidality was correlated with perceived chronic stress and the cortisol fluctuations under stress tasks in schizophrenia. High suicidality was defined as a lifetime history of suicide attempts or suicidal ideation in the past 2 weeks. Individuals with schizophrenia and high suicidality (SZ‐HS, n = 59), with low suicidality (SZ‐LS, n = 207), and healthy controls (HC, n = 196) finished the Perceived Stress Scale. Then, they participated in an experiment that induced stress using the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task and the Mirror Tracing Persistence Task. Negative affect was measured at baseline and after finishing each task. The salivary cortisol was collected before‐, after 20 min, and after 40 min of the tasks. SZ‐HS had elevated perceived stress than SZ‐LS and HC. Mixed effect models showed that stress tasks induced cortisol changes in all groups; cortisol of SZ‐LS was reduced more than HC, but SZ‐HS and SZ‐LS did not differ in cortisol fluctuations. SZ‐HS and SZ‐LS experienced similar negative affect changes during tasks and the difference in withdrawal rates was nonsignificant. SZ‐HS had an increased error rate than SZ‐LS. In conclusion, suicidality was correlated with high‐level perceived stress but did not result in differences in cortisol reactivities under stress tasks. It suggests the inconsistency between appraisal of stress and biological stress system disturbance among SZ‐HS compared to SZ‐LS.
Recent neurological studies have revealed several detailed stress mechanisms. However, the latent variables behind stress study still interpret stress responses as difficult. Therefore, we propose a stressor-free method of stress evaluation using Integrated Information Theory (IIT) to address these issues. We conducted experiments inducing acute stress responses against tasks with three levels of difficulty, easy, moderate, and difficult, to verify the IIT in stress study. The moderate condition was related to active coping with stress. By contrast, the easy and difficult conditions are related to passive stress coping. Especially, the easy condition seemed to cause boredom. Our results revealed that the degree of entangled system fluctuation was associated with the subjective ratings for the tasks. Interestingly, our method could also evaluate stress as a state of boredom that had not received much research attention. Our method can be an alternative stress estimation method to overcome the latent variable problem.
In nutrition research, mood is frequently measured, typically using rating scales. Positive mood encourages consumption, so it’s crucial to evaluate mood accurately. There is mounting proof that mood is influenced by nutritional elements such as high and less essential nutrients, such as vegetables, fruits, supplements, and eating habits. The purpose of this review is to take into account a variety of conventional and cutting-edge instruments for evaluating mood in relation to diet. We examine questionnaires that have been psychometrically validated to evaluate both specific moods (such as depression) and a variety of emotions (such as melancholy, anxiety, anger, and energy). We examine questionnaires that assess positive mood (such as vitality, happiness, and calmness), and we recommend that investigators should broaden their toolbox to encompass a wider scope of healthy indicators, such as gladness, eudaimonia, and satisfactory living, which is a good mood linked to meaning, engagement and purpose. The cutting-edge technological and methodological aspects of real-time mood assessments were examined using experience sampling techniques, daily diaries, as well as ecological momentary evaluation, which are suitable for measuring moods as they happen on a daily or momentary basis, for instance, via smartphones’ use. We conclude by urging the incorporation of more cutting-edge platforms, with a focus on a variety of ambulatory techniques and sampling tactics. Real-time evaluation will continue to provide a scientifically sound method of evaluating the relationship between mood and food as it manifests in day-to-day living, opening our eyes to new possibilities.
Stress has been associated with less effective vaccine responses in adults. This review aims to investigate the evidence for a similar association in children. A systematic review search was conducted in January 2021 in three databases: Medline, Embase and PsycInfo. An updated search of the Medline database was systematically conducted until the most recent update on September 25th, 2023, to ensure the inclusion of the most current research available. Keywords related to stress, vaccines and children were used, and a total of 7263 (+1528) studies were screened by two independent investigators. Six studies met the inclusion criteria for data extraction and analysis. For quality assessment of the studies, the risk of bias in non‐randomized studies—of interventions (ROBINS‐I) tool was applied. Most of the studies suggest a negative role of stress on vaccine responses. However, the scarcity of studies, lack of confirmatory studies, risk of bias and heterogeneity according to age, type of vaccine, measures of stress and vaccine responses prevent a clear conclusion. Future studies should emphasize the use of as strict study designs as possible, including well‐defined stress metrics and thorough examination of both pre‐ and post‐vaccination responses. Systematic review registration : Prospero CRD42021230490.
Understanding emotions in males is crucial given their higher susceptibility to substance use, interpersonal violence, and suicide compared to females. Steroid hormones are assumed to be critical biological factors that affect and modulate emotion-related behaviors, together with psychological and social factors. This review explores whether males‘ abilities to recognize emotions of others and regulate their own emotions are associated with testosterone, cortisol, and their interaction. Higher levels of testosterone were associated with improved recognition and heightened sensitivity to threatening faces. In contrast, higher cortisol levels positively impacted emotion regulation ability. Indirect evidence from neuroimaging research suggested a link between higher testosterone levels and difficulties in cognitive emotion regulation. However, this notion must be investigated in future studies using different emotion regulation strategies and considering social status. The present review contributes to the understanding of how testosterone and cortisol affect psychological well-being and emotional behavior in males.
One pathway through which stressors are thought to influence physiology is through their effects on emotion. We used meta-analytic statistical techniques with data from nine studies to test the effects of acute laboratory stressors (speech, star mirror-image tracing, handgrip) on emotional (undifferentiated negative emotion, anger, anxiety) and cardiovascular (CV) response. In all of the studies, participants responded to stressors with both increased CV response and increased negative emotion. Increases in negative emotion were associated with increases in CV response across tasks, however, these associations were small. The range of variance accounted for was between 2% and 12%. Thus, the contribution of negative emotion, as assessed in these studies, to physiological responses to acute laboratory stressors was limited. Although these results raise questions about the role of emotion in mediating stress-elicited physiological responses, the nature of the acute laboratory stress paradigm may contribute to the lack of a strong association.
In recent studies of the structure of affect, positive and negative affect have consistently emerged as two dominant and relatively independent dimensions. A number of mood scales have been created to measure these factors; however, many existing measures are inadequate, showing low reliability or poor convergent or discriminant validity. To fill the need for reliable and valid Positive Affect and Negative Affect scales that are also brief and easy to administer, we developed two 10-item mood scales that comprise the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). The scales are shown to be highly internally consistent, largely uncorrelated, and stable at appropriate levels over a 2-month time period. Normative data and factorial and external evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for the scales are also presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
One hundred fifteen college students were exposed to an evaluative speech task twice, separated by 2 weeks. At both sessions,
we assessed cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, and psychological response at baseline and during the task. We found stability
across sessions for stress-induced increases in anxiety and task engagement, heart rate, blood pressure, norpinephrine (but
not epinephrine), cortisol, natural killer cell cytotoxicity, and numbers of circulating CD3+, CD8+, and CD56+ (but not CD4+
or CD19+) lymphocytes. The stable cardiovascular, immune, and endocrine reactivities were intercorrelated, providing evidence
of a unified physiological stress response across these outcomes. Although stable stress-induced increases in task engagement
were associated with the physiological stress responses, stress-induced anxiety was not.
Researchers have theorized that changing the way we think about our bodily responses can improve our physiological and cognitive reactions to stressful events. However, the underlying processes through which mental states improve downstream outcomes are not well understood. To this end, we examined whether reappraising stress-induced arousal could improve cardiovascular outcomes and decrease attentional bias for emotionally negative information. Participants were randomly assigned to either a reappraisal condition in which they were instructed to think about their physiological arousal during a stressful task as functional and adaptive, or to 1 of 2 control conditions: attention reorientation and no instructions. Relative to controls, participants instructed to reappraise their arousal exhibited more adaptive cardiovascular stress responses-increased cardiac efficiency and lower vascular resistance-and decreased attentional bias. Thus, reappraising arousal shows physiological and cognitive benefits. Implications for health and potential clinical applications are discussed.
It is well established that a lack of social support constitutes a major risk factor for morbidity and mortality, comparable to risk factors such as smoking, obesity, and high blood pressure. Although it has been hypothesized that social support may benefit health by reducing physiological reactivity to stressors, the mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear. Moreover, to date, no studies have investigated the neurocognitive mechanisms that translate experiences of social support into the health outcomes that follow. To investigate these processes, thirty participants completed three tasks in which daily social support, neurocognitive reactivity to a social stressor, and neuroendocrine responses to a social stressor were assessed. Individuals who interacted regularly with supportive individuals across a 10-day period showed diminished cortisol reactivity to a social stressor. Moreover, greater social support and diminished cortisol responses were associated with diminished activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and Brodmann's area (BA) 8, regions previously associated with the distress of social separation. Lastly, individual differences in dACC and BA 8 reactivity mediated the relationship between high daily social support and low cortisol reactivity, such that supported individuals showed reduced neurocognitive reactivity to social stressors, which in turn was associated with reduced neuroendocrine stress responses. This study is the first to investigate the neural underpinnings of the social support-health relationship and provides evidence that social support may ultimately benefit health by diminishing neural and physiological reactivity to social stressors.
Although previous studies of emotional responding have found that women are more emotionally expressive than men, it remains unclear whether men and women differ in other domains of emotional response. We assessed the expressive, experiential, and physiological emotional responses of men and women in 2 studies. In Study 1, undergraduates viewed emotional films. Compared with men, women were more expressive, did not differ in reports of experienced emotion, and demonstrated different patterns of skin conductance responding. In Study 2, undergraduate men and women viewed emotional films and completed self-report scales of expressivity, gender role characteristics, and family expressiveness. Results replicated those from Study 1, and gender role characteristics and family expressiveness moderated the relationship between sex and expressivity.
Abuse and neglect are highly prevalent in children and have enduring neurobiological effects. Stressful early life environments perturb the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which in turn may predispose to psychiatric disorders in adulthood. However, studies of childhood maltreatment and adult HPA function have not yet rigorously investigated the differential effects of maltreatment subtypes, including physical abuse.
In this study, we sought to replicate our previous finding that childhood maltreatment was associated with attenuated cortisol responses to stress and determine whether the type of maltreatment was a determinant of the stress response.
Salivary cortisol response to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) was examined in a non-clinical sample of women (n = 110). Subjects had no acute medical problems and were not seeking psychiatric treatment. Effects of five maltreatment types, as measured by the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, on cortisol response to the TSST were investigated. To further examine the significant (p < 0.005) effect of one maltreatment type, women with childhood physical abuse (PA) (n = 20) were compared to those without past PA (n = 90).
Women reporting childhood PA displayed a significantly blunted cortisol response to the TSST compared with subjects without PA, after controlling for estrogen use, age, other forms of maltreatment, and other potential confounds. There were no differences between PA and control groups with regard to physiological arousal during the stress challenge.
In a non-clinical sample of women with minimal or no current psychopathology, physical abuse is associated with a blunted cortisol response to a psychosocial stress task.
Anxiety vulnerability is associated with biases in attention: a tendency to selectively process negative relative to neutral or positive information. It is not clear whether this bias is: 1) related to the physiological response to stressful events, and 2) causally related to the development of anxiety disorders.
We tested the predictive value of both preconscious and conscious attention biases in a prospective study of stress reactivity in a nonclinical sample. One hundred four male participants were assessed at baseline and then again 4 months (n = 82) and 8 months later (n = 70). Salivary cortisol and self-report measures were obtained at the baseline testing session in addition to measures of biased attention. Subsequent emotional reactivity was assessed by means of salivary cortisol and self-reported state-anxiety responses during a laboratory-based stressor (4 months later) as well as during a real-life stressor 8 months later (i.e., examination period).
Regression analyses indicated that a preconscious negative processing bias was the best predictor of the cortisol response to stressful events. Importantly, a measure of selective processing provided a better indicator of subsequent emotional reactivity than self-report measures of neuroticism, trait-anxiety, and extraversion.
These results suggest that preconscious biases toward negative material play a causal role in heightened anxiety vulnerability. Our results illustrate the potential utility of preconscious biases in attention in providing an early marker of anxiety vulnerability and a potential target for treatment intervention.
Sex differences in emotional responding have been repeatedly postulated but less consistently shown in empirical studies. Because emotional reactions are modulated by cognitive appraisal, sex differences in emotional responding might depend on differences in emotion regulation. In this study, we investigated sex differences in emotional reactivity and emotion regulation using a delayed cognitive reappraisal paradigm and measured whole-brain BOLD signal in 17 men and 16 women. During fMRI, participants were instructed to increase, decrease, or maintain their emotional reactions evoked by negative pictures in terms of cognitive reappraisal. We analyzed BOLD responses to aversive compared to neutral pictures in the initial viewing phase and the effect of cognitive reappraisal in the subsequent regulation phase. Women showed enhanced amygdala responding to aversive stimuli in the initial viewing phase, together with increased activity in small clusters within the prefrontal cortex and the temporal cortex. During cognitively decreasing emotional reactions, women recruited parts of the orbitofrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to a lesser extent than men, while there was no sex effect on amygdala activity. In contrast, compared to women, men showed an increased recruitment of regulatory cortical areas during cognitively increasing initial emotional reactions, which was associated with an increase in amygdala activity. Clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
Models of stress and health suggest that emotions mediate the effects of stress on health; yet meta-analytic reviews have not confirmed these relationships. Categorizations of emotions along broad dimensions such as valence (e.g., positive and negative affect) may obscure important information about the effects of specific emotions on physiology. Within the context of the integrated specificity model, we present a novel theoretical framework that posits that specific emotional responses associated with specific types of environmental demands influence cortisol and immune outcomes in a manner that would have likely promoted the survival of our ancestors. We analyzed experiments from 66 journal articles that directly manipulated social stress or emotions and measured subsequent cortisol or immune responses. Judges rated experiments for the extent to which participants would experience theoretically relevant cognition and affect clustered around five categories: (a) cognitive appraisals, (b) basic emotions, (c) rumination and worry, (d) social threat, and (e) global mood states. As expected, global mood states were unassociated with the effect sizes, whereas exemplars from the other categories were generally associated with effect sizes in the expected manner. The present research suggests that coping strategies that alter appraisals and emotional responses may improve long-term health outcomes. This might be especially relevant for stressors that are acute or imminent, threaten one's social status, or require extended effort.
Home baseline and laboratory stressor (Trier Social Stress Test for Children) measures of salivary cortisol were obtained from 82 participants (40 girls) aged 9, 11, 13, and 15 years. Measures of pubertal development, self-reported stress, parent reports of child depressive symptoms and fearful temperament, and cardiac measures of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity were also obtained. Significant increases in the home cortisol baselines were found with age and pubertal development. Cortisol stress reactivity differed by age group with 11-year-olds and 13-year-old boys showing blunted reactivity and 9-year-olds, 13-year-old girls, and 15-year-olds showing significant cortisol reactions. Cortisol reactivity correlated marginally with sexual maturation. Measures of sympathetic activity revealed increased sympathetic modulation with age. Higher sympathetic tone was associated with more fearful temperament, whereas greater cortisol reactivity was associated with more anxious and depressed symptoms for girls. The importance of these findings for the hypothesis that puberty-associated increases in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity heightens the risk of psychopathology is discussed.
This meta-analysis included 729 studies from 161 articles investigating how acute stress responsivity (including stress reactivity and recovery of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal [HPA] axis, autonomic, and cardiovascular systems) changes with various chronic psychosocial exposures (job stress; general life stress; depression or hopelessness; anxiety, neuroticism, or negative affect; hostility, aggression, or Type-A behavior; fatigue, burnout, or exhaustion; positive psychological states or traits) in healthy populations. In either the overall meta-analysis or the methodologically strong subanalysis, positive psychological states or traits were associated with reduced HPA reactivity. Hostility, aggression, or Type-A behavior was associated with increased cardiovascular (heart rate or blood pressure) reactivity, whereas anxiety, neuroticism, or negative affect was associated with decreased cardiovascular reactivity. General life stress and anxiety, neuroticism, or negative affect were associated with poorer cardiovascular recovery. However, regarding the sympathetic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system, there were no associations between the chronic psychosocial factors and stress reactivity or recovery. The results largely reflect an integrated stress response pattern of hypo- or hyperactivity depending on the specific nature of the psychosocial background.
The need for a measure of severity of concussion apart from duration of post-traumatic amnesia is examined. The paced auditory serial-addition test, a measure of rate of information processing, is presented as a convenient test for estimating individual performance during recovery. Procedures for administration and control data are given, and the programme used for managing the rehabilitation of concussion patients described.
The brain circuitry underlying emotion includes several territories of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate, and related structures. In general, the PFC represents emotion in the absence of immediately present incentives and thus plays a crucial role in the anticipation of the future affective consequences of action, as well as in the persistence of emotion following the offset of an elicitor. The functions of the other structures in this circuit are also considered. Individual differences in this circuitry are reviewed with an emphasis on asymmetry within the PFC and activation of the amygdala as 2 key components of affective style. These individual differences are related to both behavioral and biological variables associated with affective style and emotion regulation. Plasticity in this circuitry and its implications for transforming emotion and cultivating positive affect and resilience are considered.
A review of 41 clinical and 54 analogue studies was undertaken to evaluate the relationship between anxiety response channels—physiological, behavioral and cognitive. The results indicated that congruence among response channels tended to be higher for the clinical populations than for the analogue populations. The data tend best to support Hodgson and Rachman's (1974) theory that anxiety channel congruence increases as a function of intensity of the anxiety. Tentative support was found for Bernstein and Paul's (1971) assertion that analogue and clinical subjects are sufficiently dissimilar as to obstruct the generalization of findings from one population to the other. Lastly, the congruence patterns suggest that behavioral and cognitive measures are less reliable indices of anxiety than physiological measures, especially in analogue samples.
Despite strong popular conceptions of gender differences in emotionality and striking gender differences in the prevalence of disorders thought to involve emotion dysregulation, the literature on the neural bases of emotion regulation is nearly silent regarding gender differences (Gross, 2007; Ochsner & Gross, in press). The purpose of the present study was to address this gap in the literature. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we asked male and female participants to use a cognitive emotion regulation strategy (reappraisal) to down-regulate their emotional responses to negatively valenced pictures. Behaviorally, men and women evidenced comparable decreases in negative emotion experience. Neurally, however, gender differences emerged. Compared with women, men showed (a) lesser increases in prefrontal regions that are associated with reappraisal, (b) greater decreases in the amygdala, which is associated with emotional responding, and (c) lesser engagement of ventral striatal regions, which are associated with reward processing. We consider two non-competing explanations for these differences. First, men may expend less effort when using cognitive regulation, perhaps due to greater use of automatic emotion regulation. Second, women may use positive emotions in the service of reappraising negative emotions to a greater degree. We then consider the implications of gender differences in emotion regulation for understanding gender differences in emotional processing in general, and gender differences in affective disorders.
Emotions seem to come and go as they please. However, we actually hold considerable sway over our emotions: We influence which emotions we have and how we experience and express these emotions. The process model of emotion regulation described here suggests that how we regulate our emotions matters. Regulatory strategies that act early in the emotion-generative process should have quite different outcomes than strategies that act later. This review focuses on two widely used strategies for down-regulating emotion. The first, reappraisal, comes early in the emotion-generative process. It consists of changing how we think about a situation in order to decrease its emotional impact. The second, suppression, comes later in the emotion-generative process. It involves inhibiting the outward signs of emotion. Theory and research suggest that reappraisal is more effective than suppression. Reappraisal decreases the experience and behavioral expression of emotion, and has no impact on memory. By contrast, suppression decreases behavioral expression, but fails to decrease the experience of emotion, and actually impairs memory. Suppression also increases physiological responding in both the suppressors and their social partners.
Under social-evaluative stress, self-reported anxiety (cognitive and somatic),behavioural anxiety (motor, facial, verbal and social), physiological arousal (heart rate and skinresistance level), and task performance (cognitive and motor) were recorded. There was low, buttheoretically meaningful, concordance across response systems: significant relationshipsappeared among measures of cognitive aspects, and among those concerned with somaticaspects, but not between these two areas. Furthermore, concordance was higher in females thanin males specifically between the two response systems that can be voluntarily controlled (i.e.,self-report and behaviour) and the noncontrollable system (i.e., physiological arousal). Thesedifferences in concordance as a function of gender are explained in terms of emotional responsesuppression or masking in males.
Researchers interested in emotion have long struggled with the problem of how to elicit emotional responses in the laboratory. In this article, we summarise five years of work to develop a set of films that reliably elicit each of eight emotional states (amusement, anger, contentment, disgust, fear, neutral, sadness, and surprise). After evaluating over 250 films, we showed selected film clips to an ethnically diverse sample of 494 English-speaking subjects. We then chose the two best films for each of the eight target emotions based on the intensity and discreteness of subjects' responses to each film. We found that our set of 16 films successfully elicited amusement, anger, contentment. disgust, sadness, surprise, a relatively neutral state, and, to a lesser extent, fear. We compare this set of films with another set recently described by Philippot (1993), and indicate that detailed instructions for creating our set of film stimuli will be provided on request.
Objective: In the vulnerability-stress concept of schizophrenia, schizophrenic patients are thought to display increased sensitivity
to stress. Little is known about the biological mechanisms that are involved in stress processing in schizophrenic patients.
In this study, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function in schizophrenic patients was studied for its essential role
in stress processing and adaptation to the environment. Methods: Eighteen schizophrenic patients were compared to 21 healthy controls in their salivary cortisol response to a physical (bicycle
ergometry) and a psychosocial (public speaking) stressor. Coping questionnaires were included as a measure of stress processing
at the psychological level. Basal HPA function was assessed by measuring cortisol day profiles and feedback activity by using
dexamethasone and hydrocortisone. Results: Schizophrenic patients showed blunted cortisol responses to the psychosocial stressor, but not to the physical stressor,
in spite of similar increases in heart rate. The cortisol response to the psychosocial stressor tended to be negatively correlated
to the use of passive and avoidant coping strategies. Basal HPA function appeared intact in the schizophrenic patients. Conclusions: The findings show a selective impairment in the response to psychosocial stress in schizophrenic patients. This suggests
the involvement of brain systems that play a role in the activation of the HPA system to psychosocial stress, like arginin-vasopressin
(AVP), and cognitive processes, like coping.
Recent behavioral medicine studies have revealed that some hormones secreted in human body sensitively changes according to his/her mental stress. Thus it is expected as an objective measurement of mental stress. However this newly developed interdisciplinary studies frequently showed inconsistent results. Some technical reasons were indicated for this discrepancy. Above all, we focused on the fact that in all these studies the only method introduced to estimate the relationship between the level of hormones and the subjective stress scale was the correlation analysis. In this study we employed Rough set analysis in place of conventional linear correlation analysis for mining the relationship between a subjective stress scale, “Profile of Mood Scale” (POMS), and a well known stress biomarker, salivary cortisol. As a developing result, numbers of items (inquiries in POMS) which relatively associated with cortisol level were found, whereas no significant linear correlation was obtained between them.
Recent findings suggest that elevated stress levels during the pre- and postpartum period are related to poor maternal and infant health outcomes; yet, few studies have prospectively examined the efficacy of stress management interventions on regulating stress levels among mothers and their infants. The current study examined whether a prenatal cognitive behavioral stress management (CBSM) intervention would be effective in regulating salivary cortisol (a biological marker of stress) and self-reported stress levels among mothers and their infants at six and 18 months postpartum, relative to two control groups. Our sample was comprised of predominantly Spanish-speaking, low-income women (80%; mean age=25±5 years) who were screened for depression during their second trimester of pregnancy (M=16±5 weeks of gestation). Women at high risk for depression [i.e., having either a past history of major depression or current elevated symptoms of depression (≥16 on CES-D)] were randomized to either a CBSM group (n=24) or a usual care (UC) group (n=33), while a low risk comparison (LRC) group (n=29) was comprised of women not meeting either depression criteria. ANCOVA analyses demonstrated that: (1) infants of women in the CBSM and LRC groups had significantly lower cortisol levels than infants of women in the UC group at six months postpartum (p<.001); and (2) women in the CBSM group had lower cortisol levels than women in the UC group at 18 months postpartum (p<.01). These results suggest that prenatal CBSM interventions may be efficacious in regulating biological markers of stress among mothers and their infants, thereby decreasing their risk for developing health complications over time.
Studies regarding the interrelation of perceived and physiological stress indices have shown diverging results. Using a population sample of adolescents (N=715, 50.9% girls, mean age 16.11 years, SD=0.59), we tested three hypotheses: (1) perceived responses during social stress covary with concurrent physiological stress responses; (2) high pretest levels of perceived stress predict large physiological responses; and (3) large physiological responses to social stress predict low posttest perceived stress levels. Perceived arousal, unpleasantness, and dominance were related to heart rate, respiratory sinus arrhythmia, and cortisol responses to a laboratory social stress test. Although effect sizes were small, the results suggest covariation of perceived stress and concurrent physiological stress responses in both the ANS and the HPA axis, as well as inverse associations between heart rate responsiveness and the subsequent appraisal of stress.
Food consumption in stressful situations vary as a function of individual difference factors (e.g., emotional vs. non-emotional eating), and may be related to hormonal responses elicited by the stressful event. These hormonal responses may be tied to specific emotions elicited by the stressful event. The present investigation examined the emotional and hormonal (cortisol, ghrelin) responses of high and low emotional eaters following a laboratory stressor (Trier Social Stress Test; TSST). Women (n=48) either high or low in emotional eating status were tested in a TSST or served as controls during which blood samples were taken for analysis of cortisol and ghrelin, both of which have been implicated in eating and in response to stressors. The TSST promoted elevated cortisol levels, being somewhat more pronounced in emotional than in non-emotional eaters. Both shame and anger were provoked by the TSST, and although both these emotions were correlated with cortisol levels, only anger significantly mediated the relationship between the stressor and cortisol levels. As well, baseline ghrelin levels in low emotional eaters exceeded that of high emotional eaters, and increased moderately in response to the stressor situation, irrespective of emotional eating status. Interestingly, when provided with food, ghrelin levels declined in the non-emotional eaters, but not in emotional eaters. The possibility is offered that the lack of a decline of ghrelin in emotional eaters may sustain eating in these individuals.
There is widespread consensus that stress induces dramatic physiological changes, but no agreement on the quantitative parameters that are appropriate to measure these responses. More importantly, the interpretation of various stress measurements, and how individual responses should be evaluated, has not been properly addressed. Even the definition of baseline, against which stress responses must be measured, is not clearly established. The current experiment sought to address these shortcomings by comparing the predictive value of different calculated parameters for psychosocial and physiological measures of stress across individuals. Subjects were 29 male and 59 female healthy undergraduate students with saliva samples collected over a 3-h interval that included a Trier Social Stress Test. Salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase response were analyzed using the absolute concentration, the percent change in concentration, the area under the curve (Pruessner et al., 2003), and the arrival index (change from arrival to 1h after arrival). The arrival index correlated with the subsequent stress response for both cortisol (r=0.76, p<0.01) and alpha-amylase (r=0.86, p<0.01). The arrival index for both cortisol and alpha-amylase was also related to subjective ratings of anxiety following the psychosocial stressor. A subset of individuals with high self-reported anxiety also displayed higher reactivity in response to the psychosocial stressor. Thus, the magnitude of the difference in cortisol and alpha-amylase between arrival and 1h after arrival was a predictor of subsequent stress reactivity. These findings suggest that different psychosocial profiles may be reflected in cortisol and alpha-amylase changes. For this reason: (1) a recovery period after arrival is essential to establish a baseline, (2) the difference between arrival and post-recovery period baseline should be included in experimental designs as a predictive variable, and (3) transformation of individual measures into proportional changes relative to the arrival sample is very likely to obscure important underlying individual differences.
Hoeger Bement, M.K., A. Weyer, M. Keller, A. Harkins, and S.K. Hunter. Anxiety and stress can predict pain perception following a cognitive stressor. PHYSIOL BEHAV 000-000. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of a cognitive stressor on pain perception and determine individual characteristics that may predict the pain response. Twenty-five subjects participated in three sessions: one familiarization and two experimental. The experimental sessions involved measurement of pain perception before and after 1) mental math tasks (stressor session) and 2) quiet rest (control session). Pain threshold and ratings were assessed with a mechanical noxious stimulus. Changes in stress and anxiety were examined with self-reported and physiological measures including questionnaires, visual analogue scales, and salivary cortisol levels. During the control session, stress and anxiety decreased and pain reports remain unchanged. During the stressor session, stress and anxiety increased and pain reports were variable among subjects. Based on the pain response to mental math, subjects were divided into three groups (increase, decrease or no change in pain). The increase-pain group (n=8) had lower baseline stress and anxiety, lower baseline pain reports, and large anxiety response following the mental math. In contrast, the decrease-pain group (n=9) had higher baseline stress and anxiety levels, higher baseline pain reports, and a large increase in cortisol levels. Thus, the differential response in the changes in pain perception was related to anxiety and stress levels prior to and during the cognitive stressor, indicating that psychosocial characteristics can help determine the stress-induced pain response.
Impact of body weight loss, body fat distribution and the nutritional status on the cortisol response to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) was investigated in this study. Fifty-one men (17 non-obese, 20 abdominally obese and 14 reduced obese) and 28 women (12 non-obese, 10 peripherally obese and 6 reduced obese) were subjected to the TSST in fed and fasted states. The TSST response was determined using salivary cortisol measurements. The nutritional status (being fed or fasted) had no effect on the cortisol levels during and following the TSST. Reduced obese men exhibited lower cortisol levels than non-obese men. Cortisol levels in obese men were not different from those of non-obese and reduced obese subjects. In women, there was no significant difference between groups. These finding suggest that weight status in men influences cortisol reactivity to a psychological stress and the different responses seen among genders could be linked to the different fat distributions that characterize men and women.
Cumulative acute psychosocial stress is thought to promote the development of a range of disorders which suggests that biomarkers for the physiological response may become valuable tools for biomedical research and development. The search for these biomarkers has been aided by the development of a standardised protocol for inducing psychosocial stress that combines social-evaluative threat and uncontrollability, i.e., the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Among other biological markers of acute stress, this test induces significant changes of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPAA), which is thought to play a pivotal role in the generation of stress-associated pathologies. The HPAA responses show differences between patients and healthy subjects as well as between pathologies. Moreover, gender, age, personality traits, social environment, and genotype can also shape the individual's acute stress response triggered by the TSST. Characterization of the roles and interactions of these factors in generating a dysregulation of the neuroendocrine responses to acute psychosocial stress await longitudinal studies.
Across multiple mental health-related measures, a polymorphism (5-HTTLPR) within the promoter of the serotonin transporter gene has been associated with differential psychological sensitivity to stressful experiences. Yet, the specific mechanisms by which this polymorphism contributes to risk for psychological dysfunction is unclear. Therefore, we investigated cortisol reactivity to psychosocial stress as a potential intermediate phenotype that might predispose to such risk.
A psychologically healthy sample of 182 young adults were genotyped for the 5-HTTLPR. Each participant delivered a speech and performed mental arithmetic in one of three audience conditions: a critical evaluative audience, a supportive evaluative audience, or no audience. Salivary cortisol was sampled at baseline and at 20, 40, and 75 min after stressor onset.
The two evaluative audience conditions elicited similar, significant increases in cortisol that were significantly greater than in the no audience control. Together, the evaluative audience conditions revealed a significant relationship between cortisol reactivity and the 5-HTTLPR, with the short/short genotype showing the greatest reactivity. Internal analyses revealed that the 5-HTTLPR was significantly associated with cortisol reactivity in the negative audience condition only, suggesting that short/short individuals might be especially vulnerable to social threat.
The short/short genotype of the 5-HTTLPR is associated with greater cortisol reactivity to social threat. When short/short individuals experience stressful life events, they might be at greater risk for the adverse psychological and physical health consequences associated with heightened cortisol exposure.
A consensual, componential model of emotions conceptualises them as experiential, physiological, and behavioural responses to personally meaningful stimuli. The present review examines this model in terms of whether different types of emotion-evocative stimuli are associated with discrete and invariant patterns of responding in each response system, how such responses are structured, and if such responses converge across different response systems. Across response systems, the bulk of the available evidence favours the idea that measures of emotional responding reflect dimensions rather than discrete states. In addition, experiential, physiological, and behavioural response systems are associated with unique sources of variance, which in turn limits the magnitude of convergence across measures. Accordingly, the authors suggest that there is no "gold standard" measure of emotional responding. Rather, experiential, physiological, and behavioural measures are all relevant to understanding emotion and cannot be assumed to be interchangeable.
The sex disparity in the development of depression has long been an important research topic, but the sex-related differences in neural activity during emotion regulation have been less thoroughly studied. It was hypothesized that, during the regulation of emotion, there would be more activation in the prefrontal regions implicated in cognitive processing for males, while there would be more activation in the prefrontal regions implicated in affective processing for females. This fMRI study recruited 12 females and 12 males who were required to view or to regulate the negative and positive emotion induced by some emotion-arousing pictures. During the regulation of negative emotion, both males and females had stronger activation in the left anterior cingulate gyrus, but males showed more activation in the prefrontal regions in general, including the left dorsolateral and lateral orbitofrontal gyrus as well as the right anterior cingulate gyrus, while females only showed stronger activation in the left medial orbitofrontal gyrus. For the regulation of positive emotion, both males and females showed stronger activation in the left dorsomedial prefrontal gyrus, but males were found to also have stronger activity in the left lateral orbitofrontal gyrus. It was concluded that there are common as well as sex-specific sets of brain regions involved in regulating negative and positive emotion, and the findings may have significant implications for females' vulnerability to developing depression.
Previous laboratory studies have found a relationship between experimentally manipulated emotion regulation strategies such as suppression and reappraisal and cardiovascular reactivity. However, these studies have not examined trait forms of these strategies and cortisol responses. The aim of the present study is to investigate the relationship between trait suppression, reappraisal, and cortisol reactivity to a social-evaluative speech task.
Participants completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire [ERQ; Gross, J.J., John, O.P., 2003. Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 85, 348-362] to assess trait suppression and reappraisal and were asked to complete a speech task in front of an evaluative audience. They provided five saliva samples throughout the duration of the session to assess cortisol response patterns.
Consistent with hypotheses, trait suppression predicted exaggerated cortisol responses to the speech task, with those scoring higher on suppression exhibiting greater cortisol reactivity. High levels of trait reappraisal also predicted exaggerated cortisol reactivity to the speech task.
Findings suggest that certain emotion regulation strategies such as suppression and reappraisal predict heightened cortisol reactivity to an acute stressor. Future studies should examine the psychological mechanisms through which these emotion regulation strategies affect cortisol response patterns.
It has been demonstrated that concentrations of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) are elevated by acute stress. Although several studies confirmed robust changes in IL-6, how acute stress affects other cytokines was less clear. Therefore, the present study simultaneously examined the effects of acute stress on several pro-inflammatory cytokines. Sixteen male participants were given the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Blood samples were collected at baseline, immediately after, and 30, 60, and 90min after the TSST. IL-1beta significantly increased immediately after the TSST and returned to the baseline level after 30min. Additionally, this elevation of IL-1beta was correlated with the perceived intensity of stress. These results showed that the concentration of IL-1beta is rapidly regulated, and that elevation of the IL-1beta level could possibly be attributed to transient mobilization of monocytes caused by sympathetic nervous activation. Moreover, a transient increase of IL-1beta might be conveyed to the brain and play a role in forming negative emotional states.
Acute depression has been associated with increased hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) reactivity. While chronicity of depressive illness influences symptoms, course and outcome, its effect on the HPA axis has not been extensively evaluated. The current study evaluated cortisol stress responses to a social challenge in chronic major depressive disorder (CMDD).
Cortisol stress responses to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) were compared in 26 participants with CMDD and 28 healthy controls using repeated measures analysis of variance (RANOVA). In addition, group differences in area under the curve (AUC) and peak percentage change in cortisol were examined.
The RANOVA indicated a significant sex by condition interaction in cortisol responses to the social challenge. Post-hoc testing of pair-wise group differences revealed that in females, CMDD subjects had greater cortisol levels in response to the TSST than did controls. Similarly, AUC was greater in females with CMDD than in female controls. Neither of these differences was significant in males. However, male CMDD subjects exhibited a significantly decreased peak percentage change in cortisol in response to the TSST than did male controls.
Males and females with CMDD exhibited unique differences in cortisol responses to the social challenge relative to controls. In females, CMDD subjects had greater overall secretion of cortisol whereas in males, CMDD subjects had a blunted peak response to the social stressor. Sex differences are an important consideration in future work in this population.
Individuals with major depressive disorder show blunted cortisol responses to psychosocial stressors, but the extent to which this pattern of dampened responding characterizes individuals experiencing sub-clinical levels of depressive symptoms is unknown. This study investigated whether self-reports of depressive and anxious symptoms over the previous two weeks were associated with cortisol responses to a laboratory social stress task. In addition, we tested whether these associations were mediated by baseline cortisol, subjective responses to the task, or health behaviors. Healthy adults (N=76) completed the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire prior to engaging in the Trier Social Stress Task. Salivary cortisol was measured at 8 points before and after the task to assess cortisol responding. Linear regressions revealed that men reporting more distress and somatic symptoms had smaller cortisol responses, but anhedonic symptoms were not related to cortisol. Distress was associated with lower baseline cortisol, which in turn statistically mediated the relationship between distress and cortisol response. These results demonstrate that the recent experience of depressive and anxious symptoms is associated with smaller cortisol responses to a psychosocial stressor in a non-clinical population.
Salivary cortisol is frequently used as a biomarker of psychological stress. However, psychobiological mechanisms, which trigger the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPAA) can only indirectly be assessed by salivary cortisol measures. The different instances that control HPAA reactivity (hippocampus, hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenals) and their respective modulators, receptors, or binding proteins, may all affect salivary cortisol measures. Thus, a linear relationship with measures of plasma ACTH and cortisol in blood or urine does not necessarily exist. This is particularly true under response conditions. The present paper addresses several psychological and biological variables, which may account for such dissociations, and aims to help researchers to rate the validity and psychobiological significance of salivary cortisol as an HPAA biomarker of stress in their experiments.
Stress and stress-related health impairments are major problems in human life and elucidating the biological pathways linking stress and disease is of substantial importance. However, the identification of mechanisms underlying a dysregulation of major components of the stress response system is, particularly in humans, a very challenging task. Salivary cortisol responses to diverse acute challenge paradigms show large intra- and interindividual variability. In order to uncover mechanisms mediating stress-related disorders and to potentially develop new therapeutic strategies, an extensive phenotyping of HPA axis stress responses is essential. Such a research agenda depends on substantial knowledge of moderating and intervening variables that affect cortisol responses to different stressors and stimuli. The aim of this report is, therefore, to provide a comprehensive summary of important determinants of, in particular, human salivary cortisol responses to different kinds of laboratory stimuli including acute psychosocial stress as well as pharmacological provocation procedures. This overview demonstrates the role of age and gender, endogenous and exogenous sex steroid levels, pregnancy, lactation and breast-feeding, smoking, coffee and alcohol consumption as well as dietary energy supply in salivary cortisol responses to acute stress. Furthermore, it briefly summarizes current knowledge of the role of genetic factors and methodological issues in terms of habituation to repeated psychosocial stress exposures and time of testing as well as psychological factors, that have been shown to be associated with salivary cortisol responses like early life experiences, social factors, psychological interventions, personality as well as acute subjective-psychological stress responses and finally states of chronic stress and psychopathology.
There is evidence that patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) have mild hypocortisolism. One theory about the aetiology of this hypocortisolism is that it occurs late in the course of CFS via factors such as inactivity, sleep disturbance, chronic stress and deconditioning. We aimed to determine whether therapy aimed at reversing these factors--cognitive behavioural therapy for CFS--could increase cortisol output in CFS.
We measured diurnal salivary cortisol output between 0800 and 2000 h before and after 15 sessions (or 6 months) of CBT in 41 patients with CDC-defined CFS attending a specialist, tertiary outpatient clinic.
There was a significant clinical response to CBT, and a significant rise in salivary cortisol output after CBT.
We were unable to control for the passage of time using a non-treated CFS group.
Hypocortisolism in CFS is potentially reversible by CBT. Given previous suggestions that lowered cortisol may be a maintaining factor in CFS, CBT offers a potential way to address this.
Previous research has shown that psychosocial stress is associated with an increased activity of the transcription factor nuclear factor-kappaB (NF-kappaB), a major inducer of inflammatory genes. While considerable individual variation has been noted, factors contributing to this variation have not been described so far. Therefore, 29 healthy participants (35.8+/-12 yrs) were exposed to the Trier Social Stress Test. Blood was collected before and repeatedly afterward for determination of NF-kappaB activity, leukocyte subset numbers, cortisol, norepinephrine, and in vitro-stimulated IL-6 production. Additionally, age, sex, and ratings of perceived chronic and acute stress were assessed. Regression analyses revealed that older participants showed a lower NF-kappaB stress response compared to younger adults (beta= -.42, p=.026). Higher NF-kappaB stress responses were associated with lower cortisol stress responses (beta= -.37, p=.05), higher pre-stress IL-6 production (beta=.38, p=.043), and high chronic in combination with low acute stress, or vice versa (beta= -.61, p=.06). Norepinephrine and sex were not associated with NF-kappaB stress responses (all p.13). In summary, the present study shows for the first time in human psychosocial stress the negative association of cortisol and NF-kappaB. This parallels results from in vitro studies. Our finding of lower NF-kappaB stress responses in older age and in people with high chronic and acute stress might be interpreted as an adaptive dampening of NF-kappaB activity. In the absence of longitudinal data, however, this interpretation remains speculative.
To test if the covariance of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and subjective-psychological responses to stress is dependent on different dynamics of these systems. Although stress theories typically assume substantial correlations of psychological and endocrine stress responses, studies have produced inconsistent results. One reason for this might be imperfect coupling of the different stress response systems. However, inconsistent correlations might also be a result of different on-/offsets of these stress responses, i.e., specific dynamics of the systems.
HPA axis indicators and subjective-psychological states were repeatedly and synchronously measured in a pharmacological challenge test (injection of corticotropin-releasing hormone and infusion of arginine vasopressin; Study 1; n = 42) and a psychosocial stress situation (Trier Social Stress Test; Study 2; n = 219). Cross-correlation analysis was used to test for lag effects in HPA axis reactivity and psychoendocrine responses.
Analyses revealed high cross-correlations of adrenocorticotropic hormone with cortisol responses (up to r = .80 in Study 1 and r = .56 in Study 2) and positive associations of psychological with endocrine stress responses (up to r = .48 in Study 1 and r = .54 in Study 2) at nonzero lags. Subjective-psychological responses preceded HPA axis responses. Moreover, high levels of cortisol were associated with lower later levels of anxiety and activation.
The findings suggest that psychoendocrine stress responses are more closely coupled than previous studies suggested. Due to different dynamics of the systems, endocrine responses lag behind psychological responses.
We investigated dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) secretion in response to acute psychosocial stress and the relations of DHEA secretion to cortisol secretion, cardiovascular activity, and negative mood changes. Thirty-three male students (mean age 22.6 years) were subjected to the psychosocial stress test "Trier Social Stress Test" (TSST), in which the participants were asked to deliver a speech and perform a mental arithmetic task in front of two audiences. Collections of saliva, measurements of blood pressure and heart rate, and assessments of negative mood by visual analog scales were conducted before, during, and after TSST. Acute psychosocial stress significantly increased salivary DHEA level by an average of 60% immediately after TSST. The peak of DHEA concentration preceded that of cortisol concentration by about 10 min. DHEA response was moderately correlated to cortisol response (r=.34, r(s)=.49) but not to cardiovascular response. Lower DHEA level and elevated cortisol/DHEA ratio during TSST were significantly and moderately correlated with increased negative mood during and after TSST. These results indicated that an acute increase in DHEA concentration under stressful situations might be partly mediated by the activity of hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis and could have some significance in the improvement of negative mood.
In a retrospective survey, 487 research projects approved by the Central Oxford Research Ethics Committee between 1984 and 1987, were studied for evidence of publication bias. As of May, 1990, 285 of the studies had been analysed by the investigators, and 52% of these had been published. Studies with statistically significant results were more likely to be published than those finding no difference between the study groups (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 2.32; 95% confidence interval [Cl] 1.25-4.28). Studies with significant results were also more likely to lead to a greater number of publications and presentations and to be published in journals with a high citation impact factor. An increased likelihood of publication was also associated with a high rating by the investigator of the importance of the study results, and with increasing sample size. The tendency towards publication bias was greater with observational and laboratory-based experimental studies (OR = 3.79; 95% Cl = 1.47-9.76) than with randomised clinical trials (OR = 0.84; 95% Cl = 0.34-2.09). We have confirmed the presence of publication bias in a cohort of clinical research studies. These findings suggest that conclusions based only on a review of published data should be interpreted cautiously, especially for observational studies. Improved strategies are needed to identify the results of unpublished as well as published studies.
Few data are available on the response of the human immune system to acute psychological stressors under controlled laboratory conditions. Young female subjects (21-41 years) showed increases in natural killer (NK) cell activity, and in the numbers of circulating CD8 suppressor/cytotoxic T cells, and natural killer lymphocytes following a brief (12 minute) stressful mental arithmetic examination. Older female subjects (65-85 years) failed to show the stress-related increase in NK activity. The psychological stress did lead to increases in the numbers of circulating CD8 suppressor/cytotoxic T cells and NK lymphocytes in old subjects to a similar degree as that seen in the young group. No changes in the numbers of helper/inducer T cells (CD4), total T cells (CD3), or B cells (CD20) were found following the stressor for either group. Cardiovascular, catecholamine, and subjective stress responses were similar for the two age groups. These results demonstrate that brief psychological stress is associated with some rapid immune cell changes, including release of CD8 suppressor/cytotoxic T cells and NK cells into circulation, and in young subjects, increases in NK activity. The absence of an NK activity increase in the older subjects indicates that NK cell mobilization and cell lysis induced by NK cells may be differentially affected by stress. The results also suggest the possibility of an age-related deficit in the up-regulation of NK activity under some environmental demands.
A comparison of synchrony and desynchrony was made among phobic patients exposed to imaginal flooding under conditions of high and low arousal, respectively. Subjective anxiety (SUDs) and skin conductance (SC) were recorded at five minute intervals during three separate sessions. Results showed some degree of synchrony (small positive relationship) between the two measures for the high arousal group and desynchrony (no relationship) between these measures for the low arousal group. However, with the exception of two cases, one from each group, the findings were by no means clear-cut, suggesting that other factors besides level of arousal may be responsible for individual differences in synchrony.