Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
Psychophysiology. 2011 Jul;48(7):900-7. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-8986.2010.01165.x. Epub 2010 Dec 16.
Disgust motivates avoidance of pathogen sources, but whether its role in disease avoidance extends into activating the immune system is unexplored. This was tested here by comparing oral immune markers before and after a disgust induction, relative to neutral and negative induction control groups. The disgust group, but not controls, revealed an oral inflammatory response, with increased salivary tumor necrotizing factor alpha and albumin, as well as a down-regulation of immunoglobulin A (SIgA) secretion. It has been hypothesized that disgust evolved in animals to clear toxins from the oral cavity by gaping and increased salivary flow. Our data suggest down-regulated SIgA secretion may be a vestige of this response so as to conserve protein, while the inflammatory reaction may reflect an adaptive response to disease threat, selectively triggered by disgust. The broader implications of these data for a discrete neuro-gut-immune axis are examined.
厌恶感促使人们避免接触病原体，但厌恶感在激活免疫系统方面的作用尚不清楚。本研究通过比较厌恶诱导前后与中性和负面诱导对照组相比，口腔免疫标志物的变化，来检验这一点。与对照组不同，厌恶组出现了口腔炎症反应，唾液肿瘤坏死因子-α和白蛋白增加，同时免疫球蛋白 A（SIgA）分泌减少。人们假设，在动物中，厌恶感的进化是通过张口和增加唾液分泌来清除口腔中的毒素。我们的数据表明，SIgA 分泌减少可能是这种反应的遗留物，以节省蛋白质，而炎症反应可能反映了对疾病威胁的适应性反应，这种反应是由厌恶感选择性触发的。研究还探讨了这些数据对离散的神经-肠道-免疫轴的更广泛影响。
