Effects of Acute Stress or Centrally Injected Interleukin-1beta on Neuropeptide Expression in the Immune System

Acute stress stimulates the expression and release of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) from the hypothalamus, and the pro-opiomelanocortin products beta-endorphin and ACTH from the anterior pituitary. These neuropeptides are also expressed in immune tissues, and it has been proposed that they may modulate immune responses to stress through paracrine mechanisms. We subjected rats to restraint stress or central injection of interleukin (IL)-1beta to determine whether these acute stimuli can alter the expression of neuropeptides in the spleen and thymus. Restraint stress significantly increased the contents of all these neuropeptides in thymic, but not splenic, extracts. A single icv injection of IL-1beta increased contents of CRH, AVP, ACTH and beta-endorphin in the spleens of both sham-operated and adrenalectomised (ADX) rats. IL-1beta increased thymic contents of CRH and ACTH in sham-operated rats but these increases were not observed in ADX rats. These results suggest that the effects of IL-1beta on neuropeptide expression in the spleen are independent of glucocorticoids, whereas IL-1beta stimulation of neuropeptide expression in the thymus is dependent on circulating glucocorticoids. There were significant correlations between increases in CRH, ACTH and beta-endorphin in the spleen, and between CRH and ACTH in the thymus, consistent with the suggestion that IL-1beta-induced increases in ACTH and beta-endorphin may be mediated through CRH. These results provide evidence that stressors can directly influence neuropeptide expression in immune tissues. Thus stress may influence immune functions through paracrine mechanisms involving locally synthesised neuropeptides as well as through activation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis.     

Memory for emotional faces in major depression following judgement of physical facial characteristics at encoding

The aim of the present study was to establish if patients with major depression (MD) exhibit a memory bias for sad faces, relative to happy and neutral, when the affective element of the faces is not explicitly processed at encoding. To this end, 16 psychiatric out-patients with MD and 18 healthy, never-depressed controls (HC) were presented with a series of emotional faces and were required to identify the gender of the individuals featured in the photographs. Participants were subsequently given a recognition memory test for these faces. At encoding, patients with MD exhibited a non-significant tendency towards slower gender identification (GI) times, relative to HC, for happy faces. However, the GI times of the two groups did not differ for sad or neutral faces. At memory testing, patients with MD did not exhibit the expected memory bias for sad faces. Similarly, HC did not demonstrate enhanced memory for happy faces. Overall, patients with MD were impaired in their memory for the faces relative to the HC. The current findings are consistent with the proposal that mood-congruent memory biases are contingent upon explicit processing of the emotional element of the to-be-remembered material at encoding.     

Beyond the Tower of Babel: A Nomenclature for Suicidology

Suicidology finds itself confused and stagnated for lack of a standard nomenclature. This paper proposes a nomenclature for suicide-related behavior in the hope of improving the clarity and precision of communications, advancing suicidological research and knowledge, and improving the efficacy of clinical interventions.     

Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Adrenocortical Regulation Following Lesions of the Central Nucleus of the Amygdala

Previous reports indicate that the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) stimulates adrenocorticotropin and corticosterone secretion, suggesting a role for this region in central hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) stress regulation. To evaluate this hypothesis, this study assessed the impact of CeA lesion on the response of hypophysiotrophic paraventricular nucleus (PVN) neurons to acute restraint and chronic unpredictable stress exposure. In contrast to previous reports, CeA lesions did not affect corticosterone or ACTH secretion induced by acute stress. Acute restraint increased PVN corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) mRNA expression, increased the number of parvocellular PVN neurons expressing the co-secretagogue arginine vasopressin (AVP), and induced cFOS mRNA expression in the parvocellular PVN. However, there was no additional effect of CeA lesion on any measure of PVN activation. Chronic unpredictable stress exposure induced long-term activation of the HPA axis, noted by thymic involution, adrenal hypertrophy and increased PVN CRH mRNA expression. Stress-induced changes in thymus and adrenal weights were not affected by CeA lesion. Further, CeA lesion rats did not differ from controls in post-stress CRH mRNA expression. However, basal CRH mRNA expression was increased in the PVN of CeA rats, suggesting that the CeA plays a role in long-term inhibition of the PVN. The results of these studies are not consistent with the hypothesis that the CeA is necessary for stress-induced pituitary-adrenocortical activation. Rather, this region may play a stressor-specific modulatory role in regulation of HPA function.     

Sex role as a mediator of achievement in task performance

Participants in a test of the influence of sex role on performance in a masculine task were 96 male and female undergraduates. Subject sex, norm (challenging or not challenging), and experimenter (male, female, or no experimenter present) were varied in a 2×2×3 design. When challenged, subjects worked more successfully in the presence of a female than before a male or with no experimenter present. Results support the hypothesis that the arousal of achieving tendencies may depend in part on the importance and conspicuousness of role cues. Implications for industrial performance and for future research are discussed.The authors would like to acknowledge the thoughtful assistance of Barbara Moely and Beverly Jafek, who commented on earlier drafts of this paper.All correspondence should be sent to Dr. Laurie Larwood, Claremont Men's College Claremont, California 91711. Portions of this paper were presented at the meeting of the American Psychological Association, Chicago, August 1975.     

Mothers continuing bonds and ambivalence to personal mortality after the death of their child--an interpretative phenomenological analysis

The main objective of this study was to identify how bereaved mothers describe their coping strategies in their own words. The literature on parental bereavement is sparse, and the present study aims to add to existing knowledge by eliciting the mothers' experiences covering a wide range of child ages including infants, younger children and adults. Semi-structured interviews were held with 13 bereaved mothers in the UK. Causes of death include accident, illness and suicide. The methodological approach was interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). This article reports two inter-related recurrent themes: (1) Continuing the bond with the deceased child and (2) Ambivalence to personal mortality. Participants reported that the relationship with their child was continued in a variety of ways, from tending to the grave and the child's remains, through linking objects or by establishing a symbolic representation of the child within their daily lives. All mothers talked openly about their own mortality, either demonstrating ambivalence about their own death, or expressing clear suicidal ideation. Death was seen as a release from living with the pain of loss. The presence of surviving siblings appeared to moderate suicidal ideation, but mothers expressed concerns about their ability to care adequately for other family members during times of intense grief.     

Extremes of self-esteem and narcissism and the experience and expression of anger and aggression

This study examined the level of self-esteem and narcissism as personality variables involved in the disposition to experience and express anger. Three hundred thirty-eight subjects were sampled across two higher education centres and one student teaching programme in the United Kingdom. It was reasoned that individuals with both high self-esteem and narcissism would report especially high tendencies to experience and express anger and aggression and that those with high self-esteem and low narcissism would report the lowest. These predictions were influenced by theories that emphasise the role of threats to high self-esteem in the production of aggression and violence. Results indicate that groups defined by their extreme scores on self-esteem and narcissism scales produced levels of anger expression in the predicted direction. The importance of considering extreme levels of self-esteem and narcissism (in conjunction with other factors) in an analysis of anger is discussed with reference to currently influential theories in the field. Aggr. Behav. 24:421–438, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.