Elevated Cytotoxicity in Combat Veterans with Long-Term Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: Preliminary Observations

This study investigated circulating natural killer (NK), CD4+ and CD8+ cells in response to acute psychological challenge among mothers of child cancer survivors with and without posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). Control mothers of healthy children (n = 9) were compared to 17 cancer mothers with (PTSS: n = 9) and without PTSS (No PTSS: n = 7) under conditions of rest, after a generic stressor (MAT: mental arithmetic task) and a personalized stressor (script-driven trauma imagery), and after recovery from each stressor. Results indicate the PTSS group had higher percentage CD4+ and lower CD8+ levels than non-symptomatic women and blunted NK reactivity to generic challenge. Multiple regression analyses indicated PTSS effects were independent of selfreported distress. Contrary to expectations, cancer mothers without PTSS were not significantly different from controls on tonic or phasic immune outcomes. Also unlike predictions, reactivity to challenge was greatest to the non-social MAT stressor compared to the personalized challenge for all groups. Conclusions are constrained by study limitations (e.g., small sample size and potential phase order effects). Nonetheless, results are consistent with an emerging literature on PTSSassociated immune differences and further suggest these effects may be distinct from that associated with subjective distress more generally.

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 55%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Preliminary evidence for lymphocyte distribution differences at rest and after acute psychological stress in PTSD-symptomatic women☆

Glover

Steele

Stuber

et al. 2005

“…In contrast, following sustained exposure to an environmental disaster, both CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocytes were reduced in a community survey after Hurricane Andrew when compared to normative values in the laboratory control subjects (Ironson et al, 1997). Immune evaluations of Vietnam veterans with a current PTSD diagnosis have yielded more mixed results, with some investigators reporting lower lymphocyte counts and a tendency for reduced CD4+ and CD8+ cell percentages (Boscarino and Chang, 1999), while others failed to replicate those results (Laudenslager et al, 1996). Given the mixed results, it seemed of value to continue investigating how these immune alterations generalize across different types of trauma, and especially to consider the relationship to the profile of symptoms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Symptom severity predicts degree of T cell activation in adult women following childhood maltreatment

Lemieux

Coe

Carnes

2008

Although depression is often associated with a reduction in cellular immune responses, other types of emotional disturbance and psychopathology can activate certain aspects of immunity. Activation markers on T cells, in particular, have been found to be elevated in post-traumatic stress states. However, little is known about the relationship between the severity of PTSD symptoms and the degree of change in T cell phenotypes, or about the potential role of neuroendocrine factors in mediating the association. Twenty-four women with a history of sexual trauma during childhood, including 11 who met diagnostic criteria for PTSD, were compared to 12 age-matched, healthy women without a history of maltreatment. The women provided fasted blood samples for enumeration of cell subsets by immunofluorescence and 24-hour urine samples for analysis of catecholamine and cortisol levels. The percent of T cells expressing CD45RA, an early activation marker, was higher in the PTSD diagnosed women, and the levels correlated positively with intrusive symptoms and negatively with avoidant symptoms. These alterations in cell surface markers did not appear to be mediated by norepinephrine (NE) or cortisol, making them a distinctive and independent biomarker of arousal and disturbance in PTSD.

“…The immune correlates of depression continued to be an area of active investigation over time (Zorilla et al, 2001; see also 2002 Special Issue on "Cytokines and Depression", 16:5), whereas research on the immune dysfunction associated with schizophrenia has waned (notwithstanding the provocative findings summarized in the 2001 Special Issue on the "Immunobiology of Serious Psychiatric Diseases", 15:4). There would also be a growth of interest in the hormone and immune correlates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a topic barely on the horizon in early days of PNI research (Laudenslager et al, 1998;Yehuda, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychosocial influences on immunity, including effects on immune maturation and senescence

Coe

Laudenslager

2007

Studies investigating the influence of psychosocial factors on immunity played a critical and formative role in the field of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), and have been a major component of articles published in Brain, Behavior and Immunity (BBI). An analysis of papers during the first two decades of BBI from 1987-2006 revealed three behavior-related topics were most prominent: 1) stress-induced changes in immune responses, 2) immune correlates of psychopathology and personality, and 3) behavioral conditioning of immunity. Important subthemes included the effect of early rearing conditions on immune maturation in the developing infant and, subsequently, psychosocial influences affecting the decline of immunity in the senescent host. The responsiveness of cell functioning in the young and elderly helped to validate the view that our immune competence is malleable. Many technical advances in immune methods were also evident. Initially, there was a greater reliance on in vitro proliferative and cytolytic assays, while later studies were more likely to use cell subset enumerations, cytokine quantification, and indices of latent virus reactivation. The reach of PNI extended from the traditional clinical entities of infection, autoimmunity, and cancer to attain a broader relevance to inflammatory physiology, and thus to asthma, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal disease. There continue to be many theoretical and applied ramifications of these seminal findings. Fortunately, the initial controversies about whether psychological processes could really impinge upon and modify immune responses have now receded into the pages of history under the weight of the empirical evidence.