Edna Bennet Pierce Prevention Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2023 Jul;153:106103. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106103. Epub 2023 Mar 29.
Alterations in immune system gene expression have been implicated in psychopathology, but it remains unclear whether similar associations occur for intraindividual variations in emotion. The present study examined whether positive emotion and negative emotion were related to expression of pro-inflammatory and antiviral genes in circulating leukocytes from a community sample of 90 adolescents (M = 16.3 years, SD = 0.7; 51.1% female). Adolescents reported their positive emotion and negative emotion and provided blood samples twice, five weeks apart. Using a multilevel analytic framework, we found that within-individual increases in positive emotion were associated with reduced expression of both pro-inflammatory and Type I interferon (IFN) response genes, even after adjusting for demographic and biological covariates, and for leukocyte subset abundance. By contrast, increases in negative emotion were related to higher expression of pro-inflammatory and Type I IFN genes. When tested in the same model, only associations with positive emotion emerged as significant, and increases in overall emotional valence were associated with both lower pro-inflammatory and antiviral gene expression. These results are distinct from the previously observed Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity (CTRA) gene regulation pattern characterized by reciprocal changes in pro-inflammatory and antiviral gene expression and may reflect alterations in generalized immunologic activation. These findings highlight one biological pathway by which emotion may potentially impact health and physiological function in the context of the immune system, and future studies can investigate whether fostering positive emotion may promote adolescent health through changes in the immune system.
免疫系统基因表达的改变与精神病理学有关，但个体情绪变化是否与促炎和抗病毒基因的表达有关尚不清楚。本研究通过对 90 名青少年（M=16.3 岁，SD=0.7；51.1%女性）的社区样本，检查了积极情绪和消极情绪是否与循环白细胞中促炎和抗病毒基因的表达有关。青少年两次报告了他们的积极情绪和消极情绪，两次之间间隔五周。使用多层次分析框架，我们发现，个体内积极情绪的增加与促炎和 I 型干扰素（IFN）反应基因的表达降低有关，即使在调整了人口统计学和生物学协变量以及白细胞亚群丰度后也是如此。相比之下，消极情绪的增加与促炎和 I 型 IFN 基因的表达升高有关。当在同一模型中进行测试时，只有与积极情绪相关的关联才具有统计学意义，而整体情绪效价的增加与促炎和抗病毒基因表达均降低有关。这些结果与先前观察到的逆境一致转录反应（CTRA）基因调控模式不同，CTRA 基因调控模式的特征是促炎和抗病毒基因表达的相互变化，这可能反映了一般免疫激活的改变。这些发现强调了情绪可能通过免疫系统影响健康和生理功能的一种生物学途径，未来的研究可以探讨培养积极情绪是否可以通过改变免疫系统来促进青少年的健康。
