Investigators

Olga Kornienko, PhD Katherine H. Clemans, PhD Dorothée Out, PhD Douglas A. Granger, PhD

Project Description

This study employed a social network analysis approach to examine the associations between friendship network position and cortisol levels. The sample consisted of 74 first-year students from a highly competitive, accelerated Nursing program. Participants completed questionnaires online, completed a series of sociometric nominations, and donated a saliva sample, which was later assayed for cortisol. Metrics derived from directed friendship nominations indexed each student’s friendship network status regarding popularity, gregariousness, and degree of interconnectedness. Results revealed that individuals with lower gregariousness status had higher cortisol levels, and individuals with higher popularity status had higher cortisol levels. Implications for prevailing theories of the social determinants of individual differences in biological sensitivity and susceptibility to context are discussed.

 

Principal Investigator: Margaret N. Kosek
Location: Iquitos, Peru
Funded by; Johns Hopkins Fisher Center for Environmental Infectious Diseases Discovery Program

Project Description
Childhood environmental enteropathy is hypothesized to be a component cause of stunting and is an irreversible condition characterized by abnormal intestinal architecture, decreased nutrient uptake, increased gut permeability, and reduced oral vaccine efficacy. This project will expand salivary diagnostics for future studies of environmental enteropathy as well as other viral, bacterial, and protozoan pathogens that cause significant environmental infectious disease burden.

Investigators
Sammy Zahran
Jeffrey G. Snodgrass
David G. Maranon
Susan M. Bailey
Government Postgraduate College
Chakrapani Upadhyay
Colorado State University

Project Description
Research links psychosocial stress to premature telomere shortening and accelerated human aging; however, this association has only been demonstrated in so-called “WEIRD” societies (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic), where stress is typically lower and life expectancies longer. By contrast, we examine stress and telomere shortening in a non-Western setting among a highly stressed population with overall lower life expectancies: poor indigenous people—the Sahariya—who were displaced (between 1998 and 2002) from their ancestral homes in a central Indian wildlife sanctuary. In this setting, we examined adult populations in two representative villages, one relocated to accommodate the introduction of Asiatic lions into the sanctuary (n = 24 individuals), and the other newly isolated in the sanctuary buffer zone after their previous neighbors were moved (n = 22). Our research strategy combined physical stress measures via the salivary analytes cortisol and α-amylase with self-assessments of psychosomatic stress, ethnographic observations, and telomere length assessment [telomere–fluorescence in situ hybridization (TEL-FISH) coupled with 3D imaging of buccal cell nuclei], providing high-resolution data amenable to multilevel statistical analysis. Consistent with expectations, we found significant associations between each of our stress measures—the two salivary analytes and the psychosomatic symptom survey—and telomere length, after adjusting for relevant behavioral, health, and demographic traits. As the first study (to our knowledge) to link stress to telomere length in a non-WEIRD population, our research strengthens the case for stress-induced telomere shortening as a pancultural biomarker of compromised health and aging.

Investigators
Michelle Farmerie MAIS
Henry Kacprzyk
Kesha Phares
Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium

Project Description
Previous serum and saliva cortisol studies have been performed in California sea lions (Zalophus californianus) demonstrating that this species exhibits a correlation of cortisol across these measures and that salivary assays are effective. Although sea lions have previously been studied using salivary cortisol, the relationship between diurnal patterns of cortisol and alpha amylase has not been identified. In 2012, 0.4 California sea lions were to be relocated from the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium to The Smithsonian’s National Zoo. 1.3 sea lions of the original Pittsburgh group (1.7 animals total) were to remain in Pittsburgh. This provided the ideal opportunity to first identify and then establish baselines for cortisol and alpha amylase in 1.3 California sea lions at Pittsburgh and then monitor these analytes in 1.3 animals during the day of the relocation and immediately after. In the months after the relocation, collecting data from all 1.7 animals will provide a better understanding of how relocation of animals effects the entire social group. The evaluation of changes in analytes in response to the stress of the relocation will provide valuable information that could contribute to the enhanced health, welfare and captive management of the species.

Investigators

Peter G. Roma, Ph.D.

Institutes for Behavior Resources and Johns Hopkins University School of MedicineSteven R. Hursh, Ph.D. Institutes for Behavior Resources and Johns Hopkins University School of MedicineProject Description

This NASA-sponsored research program focuses on small-group composition factors that affect the trajectories of team cohesion, task performance, and biopsychosocial adaptation over time and in response to operational stressors. This project also includes development of assay technology for measurement and behavioral economic modeling of cooperation, productivity, and fairness behaviors in small groups in applied settings, including isolated, confined, and extreme environments such as the European Space Agency’s Concordia Station in Antarctica [http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_Spaceflight/Concordia], the Hawai’i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) facility [http://hi-seas.org/], and NASA’s Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) facility [http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/hrp_hera_experiment_information_package.pdf]. The Project Team’s long-standing partnership with IISBR ensures high-quality physiological data to support investigations of the neurohormonal substrates of cohesion, performance, and biopsychosocial adaptation in long-term work groups.

Investigator

Airín D. Martínez, PhD

Project Description

Undocumented status and fear of immigration enforcement remains a persistent psycho-environmental stressor that Latina/o immigrants face. There is little evidence delineating the processes in which sociopolitical environmental conditions shape psychosocial stressors, much less the neuroendocrinological response from such stressors among Latina/o immigrants in the US. The purpose of this project is to examine how Latino immigrants’ social, economic, and political chronic stressors in Phoenix, AZ interact with biomarkers for stress (cortisol and α-amylase) and inflammation (C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin (IL-1B, IL-6, IL-8), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), which are directly related to CVD.

Investigators

Linda Luecken PhD Assistant Professor: Arizona State Universtiy

Keith Crnic PhD Foundation Professor and Department Chair: Arizona State University

Nancy Gonzales PhD Professor: Arizona State University

Project Description

Las Madres Nuevas is a research study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. The objective is to learn about how relationships between low-income Mexican American mothers and their children from birth through the first few years of life affect mother’s mental health and the child’s emotional, behavioral, and physical development. The Las Madres Nuevas project also explores how women’s cultural background and strengths influence her adjustment after childbirth.

Investigator

Nancy A. Hodgson PhD Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing

Douglas A. Granger PhD Foundation Professor of Psychology Director Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research

Project Description

Salivary measures have emerged in bio-behavioral research that are easy-to-collect, minimally invasive, and relatively inexpensive biologic markers of stress. This article we present the steps for collection and analysis of two salivary assays in research with frail, community residing older adults-salivary cortisol and salivary alpha amylase. The field of salivary bioscience is rapidly advancing and the purpose of this presentation is to provide an update on the developments for investigators interested in integrating these measures into research on aging. Strategies are presented for instructing family caregivers in collecting saliva in the home, and for conducting laboratory analyses of salivary analytes that have demonstrated feasibility, high compliance, and yield quality specimens. The protocol for sample collection includes: (1) consistent use of collection materials; (2) standardized methods that promote adherence and minimize subject burden; and (3) procedures for controlling certain confounding agents. We also provide strategies for laboratory analyses include: (1) saliva handling and processing; (2) salivary cortisol and salivary alpha amylase assay procedures; and (3) analytic considerations.

http://www.jove.com/video/50815?status=a52821k

Investigators

Heidemarie Laurent, PhD Assistant Professor University of Oregon

Robin Hertz Doctoral Student University of Oregon

Sean Laurent, PhD Assistant Professional Lecturer University of Wyoming

Dorianne Egan-Wright Doctoral Student University of Oregon

Douglas A. Granger, PhD Foundation Professor of Psychology Director Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research

Project Description

Mindfulness is known to improve individuals’ and couples’ subjective stress regulation, but little is known about how it impacts hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis responses to acute psychosocial stress. The current study tested effects of dispositional mindfulness facets on young adult couples’ cortisol responses to a conflict discussion stressor, as well as associations with psychological adjustment. One hundred heterosexual couples completed the five facet mindfulness questionnaire one week before engaging in a conflict discussion task. Each partner provided five saliva samples from pre- to post-conflict, which were assayed for cortisol. Measures of adjustment – depression and anxiety symptoms and global well-being – were also completed at this session. Hierarchical linear modeling of cortisol trajectories revealed sex-specific effects; whereas women’s mindfulness (nonreactivity facet) predicted higher conflict stress cortisol levels, men’s mindfulness (describing facet) predicted less pronounced cortisol reactivity/recovery curves. These patterns were related to better adjustment—lower depression symptoms for women and greater well-being for men. Implications for sex differences in mindfulness benefits are discussed.

Investigator

Lisa Berlin Brenda Jones Harden University of Maryland

Project Description

This 5-year Early Head Start-University Partnership is being conducted in collaboration with four Early Head Start programs in the greater Washington, DC area. The project involves implementing a supplemental parenting intervention for especially high-risk Early Head Start mother-infant dyads, Dozier’s Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC), and evaluating the effects on parenting behaviors and infant stress regulation. Participants are 270 mothers and their infants receiving home-based Early Head Start services. There are three broad objectives: (1) To define criteria for identifying Early Head Start families at risk for experiencing “toxic stress” and validate these criteria empirically: (2) To evaluate through a randomized trial the efficacy and value added of supplementing Early Head Start services with the ABC program; (3) To evaluate the implementation and sustainability of the ABC program within the Early Head Start context. Key outcome assessments include observed parenting behaviors, infant’s stress regulatory behaviors, and infant’s salivary cortisol production during a series of mildly stressful activities. This project is part of Administration for Children and Families Buffering Toxic Stress research consortium.

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/resource/early-head-start-university-partnership-grants-buffering-children-from