Emotional states predict cellular immune system activity under conditions of life as it is lived: A multivariate time-series analysis approach.

Bibliographic Details
Title: Emotional states predict cellular immune system activity under conditions of life as it is lived: A multivariate time-series analysis approach.
Authors: Lennart Seizer, Dietmar Fuchs, Harald R Bliem, Christian Schubert
Source: PLoS ONE, Vol 18, Iss 11, p e0290032 (2023)
Publisher Information: Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2023.
Publication Year: 2023
Collection: LCC:Medicine
LCC:Science
Subject Terms: Medicine, Science
More Details: The relationship between emotional states and immune system activity is characterized by bidirectional influences; however, limited information is available regarding the temporal dynamics of these effects. The goal of this investigation was to examine how these psychoimmunological interdependencies unfold over time under conditions of "life as it is lived". For this purpose, three healthy women collected their entire urine over a period of approximately two months at 12-h intervals (8 am-8 pm, 8 pm-8 am), resulting in a total of 112 to 126 consecutive measurements per subject. In addition, among other regular psychological assessments, the subjects completed the EWL-60-S, an emotional state questionnaire, each morning and evening. To assess the extent of T-helper type 1 immune activation, the neopterin per creatinine concentration was measured in the urine samples using high-pressure liquid chromatography. The dynamic relationships between the time series of the six emotional states (performance-related activity, general inactivity, extraversion/introversion, general feeling of comfort, emotional irritation, anxiety/depressiveness) and urinary neopterin levels were estimated in vector-autoregressive models and evaluated using Granger-causality tests, impulse-response functions and forecast error variance decompositions. The findings showed that emotional states explained up to 20% of the variance of urinary neopterin per creatinine levels, whereby most of the effects occurred within a period of approximately three days. Across all subjects, increases in anxiety/depressiveness and extraversion led to increases in neopterin levels, while a general feeling of comfort led to decreases in neopterin. These results emphasize the importance of the interdependencies between emotional states and immune system activity and showcase the potential that intensive longitudinal study designs offer for psychoneuroimmunology.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 1932-6203
Relation: https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0290032
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/9ab2e79d04f84c00898eb5408ffd0d01
Accession Number: edsdoj.9ab2e79d04f84c00898eb5408ffd0d01
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
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More Details
ISSN:19326203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0290032
Published in:PLoS ONE
Language:English