Psychosocial and socioeconomic factors associated with glycated hemoglobin in nondiabetic middle-aged men and women.

The authors tested associations between glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c; an index of glucose homeostasis and an indicator of cardiovascular disease risk in nondiabetic populations) and socioeconomic status (defined by grade of employment) and psychosocial factors in 234 British civil servants. HbA1c concentration was inversely related to grade of employment. Higher HbA1c was associated with greater waist-hip ratio, lower control at work, lower internal locus of control, lower active coping, and lower social support. Control at work, internal and chance locus of control, and active coping were also related to socioeconomic status. The association of social support but not other psychosocial factors with HbA1c was independent of socioeconomic status. HbA1c may complement measures of the metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance in studies of psychosocial factors in cardiovascular disease risk.     

Concepts dissolve artificial boundaries in the study of emotion and cognition,uniting body,brain, and mind

ABSTRACT

Theories of emotion have often maintained artificial boundaries: for instance, that cognition and emotion are separable, and that an emotion concept is separable from the emotional events that comprise its category (e.g. “fear” is distinct from instances of fear). Over the past several years, research has dissolved these artificial boundaries, suggesting instead that conceptual construction is a domain-general process—a process by which the brain makes meaning of the world. The brain constructs emotion concepts, but also cognitions and perceptions, all in the service of guiding action. In this view, concepts are multimodal constructions, dynamically prepared from a set of highly variable instances. This approach obviates old questions (e.g. how does cognition regulate emotion?) but generates new ones (e.g. how does a brain learn emotion concepts?). In this paper, we review this constructionist, predictive coding account of emotion, considering its implications for health and well-being, culture and development.