Kelsey Wallach

Response Paper #3
Psychology 403
10.17.2013
Without fail, at the beginning and end of each academic quarter my boyfriend gets sick. A
neurobiology major and the son of an academics-obsessed mother, Ive always assumed that
these chronic colds were the result of many consecutive nights with too little sleep. So, as the
girlfriend that always ends up catching these colds, I was very interested when the relation
between stress and immune system suppression was brought up in class.
It turns out that beyond the obvious negative consequences that come with sleep
deprivation, chronic levels of stress can have some potent physiological effects. In my research I
stumbled across an entire field of psychology, psychoneuroimmunology, which specifically
studies the interaction of psychological processes and the immune system. There are multiple
studies within this field that show that psychological stress can disrupt the networks of nerve
cells, endocrine organs and immune cells that communicate signals between the CNS and the
immune system. In addition, epinephrine, catecholamine, opiates and corticosteroids (which are
all found in high concentrations during stress) have been found to suppress lymphocyte function
as well as have other immunosuppressive effects. In fact, it has been found that the immune
system and neuroendocrine system (which receives signals from the brain and releases hormones
in response) share similar signal mediators and receptors, clear evidence of the physical
interaction between the two systems (Reiche, Nunes & Morimoto, 2004).
Perhaps the most fascinating of recent psychoneuroimmunology research has been
surrounding the effect of psychological stress on the initiation and growth of cancerous tumors.
A study by Eliyahu et al. (1991) injected rats with tumor cells and then measured tumor
metastasis in a control group and a group that underwent a stress session. During the stress
session a weight was attached to the tails of the rats in the experimental group. The rats were
then placed in a water tank for 3 minutes followed by a 3 minute rest, this procedure was
repeated 5 times. Their results showed that the tumors in the stressed rats metastasized nearly
twice as much as in the control. Furthermore,

samples from spleen cells in the stressed rats

showed a substantial decrease in natural killer cells, a type of lymphocyte that act as a defense
against malignant cells (Eliyahu et al., 1991).

A similar study done by Wu et al. (2000) further demonstrates how purely psychological
stress, (that is without any physical task included to induce stress) can negatively affect the
immune system. Evidence from their study indicates that social isolation had a suppressive
effect on splenic natural killer cell activity as well as macrophage cytotoxicity in mice. Mice that
had been socially isolated not only showed these suppressive effects but also had significantly
higher rates of tumor growth than those left in their colony. These results suggested that this
suppressive effect on the immune system as a result of social isolation stress may actually
enhance the rate of tumor metastasis.
I am very excited to have discovered psychoneuroimmunology. I think it is a fascinating
field, and that its research holds a lot of potential in both illness prevention as well as treatment.
This research also speaks towards the value of therapies and mindfulness practices. It would be
very interesting to compare the metastasis rates of a large sample of cancer patients with one
group undergoing some sort of psychological therapy treatment. The ability to affect your bodys
physiological processes by controlling levels of stress, either through avoiding stressful events or
maintaining an optimistic mindset, would give patients an incredible sense of power and control,
which are also considered to be the two large influences of stress.

Reiche, E., Nunes, S., & Morimoto, H. (2004). Stress, depression, the immune system and
cancer. The

Lancet Oncology, 5(10), 617-325. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1470-

2045(04)01597-9
Segerstrom, S., & Miller, G. (2004). Psychological stress and the human immune system: A
meta-analytic study of 30 years of inquiry. Psychol Bull, 130(4), 601-630. doi: 10.1037/00332909.130.4.601
Wu, W., Yamaura, T., Murakami, J., Murata , J., Matsumoto, K., Watanabe, H., & Saiki, I.
(2000). Social isolation stress enhanced liver metastasis of murine colon 26-l5 carcinoma cells
by suppressing

immune responses in mice. Life Sciences, 66(19), 1827-1838. doi:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0024-3205(00)00506-3