Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, United States; Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, United States.
University of California Los Angeles, Department of Psychology, Los Angeles, CA 90095, United States.
Brain Behav Immun. 2018 Mar;69:540-547. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2018.02.001. Epub 2018 Feb 16.
Inflammation plays a role in mood and behavior that may be relevant to identifying risk factors and treatment for depression and other stress-related illnesses. The purpose of this study was to examine whether fluctuations in inflammation following a mild immune stimulus were associated with changes in daily reported features of depression for up to a week in a healthy sample of young adults.
Forty-one undergraduate students completed daily diaries of mood, feelings of social disconnection, sleep, and physical symptoms for one week before and after receiving the seasonal influenza vaccine. Circulating plasma interleukin-6 (IL-6) was measured via blood samples taken immediately before and one day after vaccination.
There was a significant increase in circulating IL-6 from pre- to post-intervention (p = .008), and there was significant variability in the magnitude of IL-6 change. Greater increases in IL-6 were associated with greater mood disturbance on post-vaccine days, specifically depressed mood and cognitive symptoms.
Minor increases in inflammation were associated with corresponding increases in features of depression, and these associations occurred in the absence of any physical symptoms. The influenza vaccine could be used to probe causal relationships with a high degree of ecological validity, even in high-risk and vulnerable populations, to better understand the role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of depression.
炎症在情绪和行为中起作用，这可能与识别抑郁和其他与压力相关疾病的风险因素和治疗方法有关。本研究的目的是在健康的年轻成年人样本中，检查轻度免疫刺激后炎症的波动是否与一周内每日报告的抑郁特征的变化有关。
41 名大学生在接种季节性流感疫苗前一周和后一周完成了情绪、社交脱节感、睡眠和身体症状的日常日记。通过接种前和接种后一天采集的血液样本测量循环血浆白细胞介素 6（IL-6）。
从干预前到干预后，循环 IL-6 显著增加（p=0.008），并且 IL-6 变化的幅度存在显著差异。IL-6 增加幅度越大，接种后几天的情绪障碍越大，特别是抑郁情绪和认知症状。
轻微的炎症增加与抑郁特征的相应增加有关，而且这些关联发生在没有任何身体症状的情况下。流感疫苗可以在高生态效度的情况下用于探究因果关系，即使在高风险和脆弱人群中，也可以更好地了解炎症在抑郁症发病机制中的作用。
