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The Cutting Edge

Stress Gets under Our Skin

EVERYONE EXPERIENCES SOCIAL STRESS, whether it is job-interview jitters, party angst or stage fright while delivering a speech. UCLA researchers have discovered that how our brains respond to social stressors can influence the body’s immune system in ways that may negatively affect health.

In a study published in the August 2010 online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, George Slavich, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the UCLA Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, and Shelley Taylor, Ph.D., professor of psychology, show that individuals who exhibit greater neural sensitivity to social rejection also exhibit greater increases in inflammatory activity to social stress. This characteristic in turn can increase the risk of a variety of disorders, including asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer and depression.

But why would neural sensitivity to social stress cause an increase in inflammation? One possible explanation suggested by the authors is that since physical threats have historically gone hand in hand with social threat or rejection, inflammation may be triggered in anticipation of a physical injury. Inflammatory cytokines – proteins that regulate the immune system – are released in response to impending (or actual) physical assault because they accelerate wound-healing and reduce the risk of infection.


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IN THIS ISSUE
  • BRAVE NEW WORLD. How UCLA leads the way in this era of healthcare reform and innovation.
  • Big Goals for Small Science
  • What DNA Reveals about Autism
  • New Building, New Hope
  • Arresting Arrhythmias
  • 5,000th Liver Transplant
  • Our Genes, Ourselves
  • Hike Tobacco Tax, Curb Smoking for Some Groups
  • Hand-Transplantation Center Opens
  • Stress Gets under Our Skin
  • Watching Cancer Killers in Action
  • Margaret Stuber, M.D., Lynn Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., and M. Ines Boechat, M.D.
  • Taking It to the Streets
  • Calming the Storm
  • The Greatest Evil
  • What Works? What Doesn't?
  • A Different Face of Pain
  • The Clinical Experience that Taught Me the Most - Dr. Walter Coppenrath
  • Femurs and Fords
  • Stopping Seizures - Dr. Gary Mathern
  • Awards/Honors
  • In Memoriam
  • Grants
  • In the News
  • Call to Action: RENEW
  • Miracle Worker
  • Networking Made Simple
  • The Family that Volunteers Together
  • Bruin, M.D.
  • Welcome Aboard, Dr. Aubry
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