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Psychophysiological investigations of the acute effects of stress on physiological measures that have been implicated as risk factors for or contributors to chronic illnesses, notably hypertension and coronary heart disease typically are studied using a deceptively simple paradigm: A resting baseline is measured, the subject is exposed to a stressor, another measurement (or measurements) is taken,...
The concept of homeostasis is potentially one of the most studied and understood aspects of physiology. Also well known are the effects of threats to homeostasis, known as stressors. It has long been appreciated that the body responds to stressors actively, known as an allostatic response. The classic stress response – the activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the release of glucocorticoids...
Medical disorders coincide with characteristic dysregulations in neuroendocrine systems that are critically involved in disease etiology, maintenance, and progression. This chapter overviews disease-related alterations in the main neuroendocrine axes and highlights their clinical relevance. Effects of stress and dysregulations of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis as well as comments on methodological...
Immune system activity is heavily influenced by the central nervous system. These interactions provide us the means to study mind–body interactions and how they affect health. In general, measures of immune system activity can be divided into two categories: those that are evident in the circulation and those that need to be elicited. For example, leukocytes can be collected from the circulation,...
Assessment of circulating biomarkers of inflammation and hemostasis has contributed significantly to the advancement of the clinical relevance of behavioral medicine. Inflammatory biomarkers reflect activation of pro- and anti-inflammatory pathways, as well as of cell adhesion phenomenon. Cellular adhesion molecule markers can reflect generalized inflammation as well as specific activation of numerous...
There has been a dramatic increase in the prevalence of overweight and obese individuals, leading to a worldwide health crisis. Obesity is interrelated with a cluster of metabolic variables including insulin resistance, impaired glucose tolerance, dyslipidemia, and hypertension. When present together, this cluster of abnormalities has been termed the metabolic syndrome. The metabolic syndrome can...
A major goal of the present chapter is to try to provide a comprehensive framework that researchers can use to generate testable hypotheses about the autonomic influences on the heart. This will include a brief discussion of the differential autonomic influences on different cardiac effector tissues including sympathetic–parasympathetic interactions as well as the discussion of cardiovascular activation...
The purpose of this chapter is to educate psychologists in physiology of the different cardiac measures available and how each method can be used in behavioral research. This chapter discusses five different methods of functional cardiac imaging and evaluates their significance and use in behavioral research. Functional imaging is helpful in behavioral research because it allows the investigator to...
Until recently, behavioral medicine research, including its conceptual models, measures, and clinical applications, has focused almost exclusively on psychological, social, behavioral, and environmental factors that occur or are measured during waking. Yet, humans spend 1/3 to 1/4 of their lives asleep, and there is strong evidence that sleep is essential to health and functioning. The premise of...
The cross-disciplinary integration of neuroimaging methods in behavioral medicine research is now permitting investigators to better explicate the brain systems involved in a number of cognitive, emotional, social, behavioral, and physiological processes important for health and well-being. Accordingly, this chapter provides a basic introduction to human neuroimaging methods, particularly those that...
Behavioral medicine seeks to improve the understanding of health and disease by considering not only the biology and functions of the body, but also their interaction with mind, behavior, and the environment. Medical imaging of the brain is used clinically for diagnosis of neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions and for parallel research into these disorders. However the broader research application...
Depression is an important predictor of adverse medical outcomes via alterations in autonomic, endocrine, immune, hemostatic, and treatment adherence mechanisms. Depression likely influences each of these processes through its effects on the brain. The purpose of this chapter is to selectively review brain imaging findings in depression and interpret these results in the context of how the brain functions...
This chapter explores the use of electrophysiological methods in behavioral medicine. Studies are reviewed that involve recording the electroencephalogram (EEG), event-related potential (ERP), or evoked potential. Electrophysiological methods have been applied in examining disease: cardiovascular disease, diabetes and neuroendocrine disorder, cancer, immunological disorders, chronic pain, respiratory...
The life course approach to health behaviors is complementary and encompasses the adult lifestyle model of chronic disease epidemiology. In this chapter we describe how this approach recognizes the important role of health behaviors on disease and investigates the factors that influence their initiation in early life and adolescence as well as their maintenance in adult life and possibilities for...
We have come to realize that the antecedents of good health and the risks for disease in adulthood begin early. Studies over the last few decades have pushed back the search for initial causation and etiology from a focus on childhood and early rearing to the prenatal period. In both animal models and human research, it is now evident that maternal diet, exposure to environmental toxicants, and even...
A harsh early environment has adverse affects on health not only in childhood but across the life span. Chief among the toxic aspects of early environment that have been related to poor health are low childhood socioeconomic status and a harsh family environment, including physical and sexual abuse as well as more modest family dysfunction, such as family conflict, neglect, and a cold, non-nurturant...
This chapter reviews disparities in health by socioeconomic status (SES) among adolescents. We first discuss disparities among adolescents with regard to outcomes including self-reported health, hospitalizations, and mortality. The second part of the chapter discusses the pathways through which SES may come to impact adolescent health. These pathways include factors at different levels such as individual...
Reproductive hormones have diverse effects on mood, behavior, and health in both men and women. However, the focus of this chapter is on female predominant reproductive hormones and their effects on mood and health in women, not only across the reproductive life span, but as well in women’s peri- and postmenopausal years associated with hormone withdrawal or replacement. In this chapter, we first...
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