Laboratory for Biological Health Psychology

05/01/2015

Abstracts Abstracts submission for ISPNE 2015 is now Open! Please click below to submit: Abstracts are invited under the conference theme “Stress and The Brain: From Fertility to Senility”. Abstract Submission Deadline: Friday 8th May 2015Abstract Notification to Authors: Monday 25th May 2015Early R…

04/04/2015

Congratulations to lab member Danielle Gianferante for successfully defending her thesis "Age and S*x Differences in Glucocorticoid Sensitivity of Pro-inflammatory Cytokine Production After Repeated Psychosocial Stress" and getting her PhD in Psychology!

03/27/2015

Congratulations to lab member Christine McInnis for successfully defending her thesis "Impact of Adiposity on Pro- and Anti-Inflammatory Responses to Stress" today, and getting her PhD in Neuroscience!

03/23/2015

03/21/2015

Lab member Alex Fiksdal presenting his work at on how subjective social status interacts with race in predicting inflammatory stress responses. Great talk, Alex, and congratulations!

03/20/2015

Lab member Luke gave a talk today at about fasting and how it affects inflammatory stress responses. Excellent job Luke, congrats!

03/19/2015

Lab member Jonah presenting his work on cognition and inflammation at . First talk, and a job well done- congratulations, Jonah!

03/04/2015

***Health Attitudes Study***

How do you think your daily behaviors and interaction with other people affect your health?

Could it be affecting your stress levels and immune system?

If you want to participate in a study that is examining these questions contact the Brandeis Health Lab for more information!

You will earn $5 or 0.5 study credit for your participation in this experiment.

For this, you will be asked to come to the lab on a late morning (40 minutes) to fill out questionnaires and have your finger pricked.

For more information, please contact abs.brandeis@gmail.edu.

02/13/2015

New paper from our lab published in showing how expression of major pro- and antiinflammatory genes responds acute stress, and habituates upon repeated exposure in humans.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2015.02.006

Note to users: Accepted manuscripts are Articles in Press that have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication by the Editorial Board of this publication. They have not yet been copy edited and/or formatted in the publication house style, and may not yet have the full ScienceDirect functionalit…

02/10/2015

check this out, lab!

Abstract
Background

Blunted blood pressure (BP) dipping during nighttime sleep has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events. Psychological traits have been associated with prolonged cardiovascular activation and a lack of cardiovascular recovery. This activation may extend into nighttime sleep and reduce BP dipping.

Purpose

This study aims to evaluate the association between trait rumination and nighttime BP dipping.

Methods

Sixty women scoring either high or low on trait rumination underwent one 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring session. Self-reported wake and sleep times were used to calculate nighttime BP.

Results

High trait rumination was associated with less diastolic blood pressure (DBP) dipping relative to low trait rumination. Awake ambulatory BP, asleep systolic blood pressure (SBP) and DBP, and asleep SBP dipping were not associated with trait rumination.

Conclusions

In a sample of young women, high trait rumination was associated with less DBP dipping, suggesting that it may be associated with prolonged cardiovascular activation that extends into nighttime sleep, blunting BP dipping.

02/06/2015

Lab member Dr. Juli Breines publishes new article on self compassion and amylase responses to repeated stress.

check it out at: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/knHz2qS5kXqSAScrSSmz/full …

Self-compassionate young adults show lower salivary alpha-amylase responses to repeated psychosocial stress. . ???aop.label???. doi: 10.1080/15298868.2015.1005659

01/06/2015

We invite the ISPNE community to the beautiful Scottish capital city of Edinburgh for the 45th Annual Meeting, September 8th-11th 2015.