Armario A, Marti O, Molina T, de Pablo J, Valdes M
Department de Biologia Cel.lular i de Fisiologia, Facultat de Ciències, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 1996 Jan;21(1):17-24. doi: 10.1016/0306-4530(95)00048-8.
Although the endocrine response to psychological stressors has been extensively studied both in animals and humans, the sensitivity of these variables to the intensity of stress experienced by exposure to psychologically stressful situations has not been studied in humans. In the present work this was assessed by measuring plasma levels of glucose, cortisol and prolactin in female medical students just before taking two examinations clearly differing in the anxiety they provoke. It was found that both examinations increased anxiety just before taking them, but the physiology examination (EPh) caused higher anxiety than the psychology (EPs). Prolactin increased in response to both examinations as compared to the non-stress condition, but its levels were greater in the EPh than in the EPs. Cortisol followed the same pattern as prolactin, but increased only marginally in the EPs. Finally, glycemia rose to the same extent in response to both examinations. A significant positive correlation was found between anxiety and glucose, and between cortisol and prolactin when data from all situations were included. On the basis of these results, it appears that the three variables might be useful as putative markers of stress in humans, although glucose might reflect different underlying psychological processes than cortisol and prolactin. In addition, it was found for the first time that prolactin is able to discriminate between stressful situations of different intensity. The response of these physiological variables to other stressful situations differing both in quantitative and in qualitative terms merits to be studied in further work.
尽管对动物和人类心理应激源的内分泌反应已进行了广泛研究，但这些变量对因暴露于心理应激情境而经历的应激强度的敏感性在人类中尚未得到研究。在本研究中，通过测量女医学生在参加两场明显引发不同焦虑程度的考试前的血浆葡萄糖、皮质醇和催乳素水平来对此进行评估。结果发现，两场考试在即将开考时都会增加焦虑，但生理学考试（EPh）引发的焦虑高于心理学考试（EPs）。与非应激状态相比，两场考试均使催乳素水平升高，但EPh中的催乳素水平高于EPs。皮质醇的变化模式与催乳素相同，但在EPs中仅略有升高。最后，两场考试导致血糖升高的幅度相同。当纳入所有情况的数据时，焦虑与葡萄糖之间、皮质醇与催乳素之间均存在显著正相关。基于这些结果，似乎这三个变量可能作为人类应激的假定标志物有用，尽管葡萄糖可能反映的潜在心理过程与皮质醇和催乳素不同。此外，首次发现催乳素能够区分不同强度的应激情况。这些生理变量对其他在数量和质量上都不同的应激情况的反应值得在进一步研究中探讨。
