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

Abstract

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.

Social affiliation matters: both same-sex and opposite-sex relationships predict survival in wild female baboons

“…Most studies in humans have relied on composite indices, including 'structural' measures of individual integration into social networks or communities or 'functional' measures of perceived or received social support [1]. Both types of composite measures predict stress reactivity and health [2,3,6,71,72], and structural measures of social connectedness are more strongly associated with survival than functional measures [1].…”

Surgical Stress-Induced Immune Cell Redistribution Profiles Predict Short-Term and Long-Term Postsurgical Recovery

“…This expectation is likely to arise because numerous studies have shown that distress suppresses or dysregulates various aspects of immune function [8][9][10][11] and also impairs wound-healing 48,49 . It becomes clear that our results complement rather than contradict the well-known immunosuppressive/dysregulatory effects of stress as soon as one distinguishes the short-term, adaptive, fight-or-flight stress response from long-term, maladaptive, chronic stress or distress 12 .…”

“…This a priori hypothesis was based on findings of preclinical studies showing that, in contrast with chronic stress, which mediates well-known health-aversive effects [7][8][9][10][11] , an acute, fight-or-flight stress response, lasting for minutes to hours, induces specific changes in blood leukocyte distribution and other immune parameters and enhances innate and adaptive immune responses in organs (e.g., skin, subcutaneous tissue, and sentinel lymph nodes) to which leukocytes traffic during stress [12][13][14][15][16][17] . Early during an acute stress response (within ten to thirty minutes), lymphocyte and monocyte numbers increase in the blood stream as these cell types are mobilized from organs like the spleen and the marginated pool [18][19][20][21][22] .…”

The Immune Basis of Allergic Lung Disease

“…Neonates are thought to be predisposed to T H 2 immune responses; however, in normal development, the phenotype changes to T H 1 dominant and antigen exposure promotes tolerization to allergen (Strickland et al, 2012;Strickland and Holt, 2011). Why asthmatics exhibit sustained sensitivity to allergens and T H 2 dominant responses is unclear, but studies in animals have revealed the importance of the prenatal (Hollingsworth et al, 2008;Brand et al, 2011;Whitrow et al, 2009) and neonatal (Arnold et al, 2011;Bisgaard et al, 2007;Minshall et al, 1996;Van Scott et al, 2004) environment in both immunological memory and physiological responses to stress (Coe and Laudenslager, 2007;Coe and Ershler, 2001;Coe and Erickson, 1997;Coe, 1993) later in life. The integration of innate and adaptive immune responses is also becoming better appreciated.…”