Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Brain Behav Immun. 2021 Nov;98:310-316. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2021.08.229. Epub 2021 Aug 27.
Parasympathetic nervous system activity can downregulate inflammation, but it remains unclear how parasympathetic nervous system activity relates to antiviral activity. The present study examined associations between parasympathetic nervous system activity and cellular antiviral gene regulation in 90 adolescents (M = 16.28, SD = 0.73; 51.1% female) who provided blood samples and measures of cardiac respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), twice, five weeks apart. Using a multilevel analytic framework, we found that higher RSA (an indicator of higher parasympathetic nervous system activity)-both at rest and during paced breathing-was associated with higher expression of Type I interferon (IFN) response genes in circulating leukocytes, even after adjusting for demographic and biological covariates. RSA was not associated with a parallel measure of inflammatory gene expression. These results identify a previously unrecognized immunoregulatory aspect of autonomic nervous system function and highlight a potential biological pathway by which parasympathetic nervous system activity may relate to health.
副交感神经系统活动可以下调炎症反应，但副交感神经系统活动与抗病毒活性之间的关系仍不清楚。本研究在 90 名青少年（M=16.28，SD=0.73；51.1%为女性）中，两次检测了他们的心脏呼吸窦性心律失常（RSA），两次检测时间间隔为五周，以此来检验副交感神经系统活动与细胞抗病毒基因调控之间的关联。使用多层次分析框架，我们发现，无论是在静息状态还是在呼吸节奏控制下，更高的 RSA（副交感神经系统活动的一个指标）与循环白细胞中 I 型干扰素（IFN）反应基因的更高表达相关，即使在调整了人口统计学和生物学协变量后也是如此。RSA 与炎症基因表达的平行测量无关。这些结果确定了自主神经系统功能的一个以前未被认识到的免疫调节方面，并强调了副交感神经系统活动可能与健康相关的潜在生物学途径。
