Trial reportNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology2021
Beta-adrenergic blockade blunts inflammatory and antiviral/antibody gene expression responses to acute psychosocial stress.
Trial report in Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neurophysiological contributors to advantageous risk-taking: an experimental psychopharmacological investigation.Social cognitive and affective neuroscience · 2021Trial
- Fast and slow gene expression changes in blood following acute social stress.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Emerging Perspectives on Adverse Childhood Experiences and Brain Cancer Immunotherapy.Cancers · 2026Article
- IBS stress reactivity phenotype is associated with blood transcriptome profiles and microstructural and functional brain changes.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Article
- β-Adrenergic Signaling Contributes to Circadian and Lipid Dysregulation in Meibomian Glands During Chronic Psychological Stress.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2026Article
- Social genomics and cancer - untangling nature from nurture in squamous cell carcinoma outcomes.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Review
- Differential associations between relationship stressors and natural killer cell gene expression by race/ethnicity and sex among older U.S. adults.Brain, behavior, and immunity · 2025Article
- Trauma writing reduces conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA) gene expression: A culturally adapted pilot study.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Article
- Social Genomic Determinants of Health: Understanding the Molecular Pathways by Which Neighborhood Disadvantage Affects Cancer Outcomes.Journal of clinical oncology : official journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology · 2024Review
- ZIP Code to Genomic Code: Neighborhood Disadvantage, Aggressive Breast Cancer Biology, and Breast Cancer Outcomes.Annals of surgery · 2024Article
- Psychosocial stressors and breast cancer gene expression in the Black Women's Health Study.Breast cancer research and treatment · 2024Article
- Stressed to the Core: Inflammation and Intestinal Permeability Link Stress-Related Gut Microbiota Shifts to Mental Health Outcomes.Biological psychiatry · 2024Review
- The Interaction between Psychological Stress and Iron Status on Early-Life Neurodevelopmental Outcomes.Nutrients · 2023Review
- Support-Giving Is Associated With Lower Systemic Inflammation.Annals of behavioral medicine : a publication of the Society of Behavioral Medicine · 2023Article
- Enhanced Immune Activation Following Acute Social Stress Among Adolescents With Early-Life Adversity.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2023Article
- The role of inflammation in acute psychosocial stress-induced modulation of reward processing in healthy female adults.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2023Article
- Brain-body pathways linking racism and health.The American psychologist · 2022Article
- Psychological distress and eustress in cancer and cancer treatment: Advances and perspectives.Science advances · 2022Review
- Reflections of six neuroscientists: The influences of training at minority serving institutions.Journal of neuroscience research · 2022Article
- Psychoneuroimmunology in the time of COVID-19: Why neuro-immune interactions matter for mental and physical health.Behaviour research and therapy · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Dysregulation of the immune system is one potential mechanism by which acute stress may contribute to downstream disease etiology and psychopathology. Here, we tested the role of β-adrenergic signaling as a mediator of acute stress-induced changes in immune cell gene expression. In a randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled trial, 90 healthy young adults (44% female) received a single 40 mg dose of the β-blocker propranolol (n = 43) or a placebo (n = 47) and then completed the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). Pre- and post-stress blood samples were assayed for prespecified sets of pro-inflammatory and antiviral/antibody gene transcripts. Analyses revealed increased expression of both inflammatory and antiviral/antibody-related genes in response to the TSST, and these effects were blocked by pre-treatment with propranolol. Bioinformatics identified natural killer cells and dendritic cells as the primary cellular context for transcriptional upregulation, and monocytes as the primary cellular carrier of genes downregulated by the TSST. These effects were in part explained by acute changes in circulating cell types. Results suggest that acute psychosocial stress can induce an "acute defense" molecular phenotype via β-adrenergic signaling that involves mobilization of natural killer cells and dendritic cells at the expense of monocytes. This may represent an adaptive response to the risk of acute injury. These findings offer some of the first evidence in humans that β-blockade attenuates psychosocial stress-induced increases in inflammatory gene expression, offering new insights into the molecular and immunologic pathways by which stress may confer risks to health and well-being.
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