Biology of Resilience: Oxytocin, Positive Adaptation, and Health

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Biology of Resilience Oxytocin, Positive
Adaptation, and Health

• Laura D. Kubzansky, PhD, MPH
• Harvard School of Public Health

Workshop on Advancing Integrative Psychological
Research on Adaptive and Healthy Aging NIA / IPSR
University of California, Berkeley May 21, 2009
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Psychosocial Distress vs. Conventional Risk
Factors for Acute MI The INTERHEART Study
Attributable Risk 32.5
From Yusuf et al. Lancet, 364937-952, 2004
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Can Emotions Confer Resilience?
Emotional Vitality and CHD
Adjusted for known coronary risk factors
depression
From Kubzansky Thurston, Archives of General
Psychiatry, 2007
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Informing the Agenda on Resilience and Disease
Prevention

• Positive factors are more than the absence of
  negative factors
• Findings for positive and negative emotion
  importance of regulating emotion
• Leads to a life course perspective on emotion
• Biologically basic
• Learning to regulate is a major developmental
  task with consequences for later adaptation
• Patterns of response shaped by social processes
• Significant neurobiological component

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Emotional response patterns start early, are
shaped by social processes, and have cumulative
health effects over the life course What is
the underlying neurobiology?
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Neurobiological Underpinnings Oxytocin, Stress
Buffering, Resilience
Positive Social Interaction

• Inhibits stress-induced responsivity of
• HPA axis
• Central regulator of attachment and
• prosocial behavior

OXYTOCIN RELEASE
Attachment or Bonding
HEALTH
Sustained Anti-Stress Effects Growth
Effective Emotion Regulation
OXYTOCIN RELEASE
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Neurobiological UnderpinningsOxytocin, Stress
Buffering, Resilience

• Research in progress
• Established the Society Health Psychophysiology
  Laboratory
• Studying biological behavioral effects of
  oxytocin and social support on stress response in
  humans
• Experimental methodology
• Placebo-controlled double blind design
• Manipulate oxytocin and social support
• Measure cardiovascular, neuroendocrine, affective
  responses in men and women

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Stress-Buffering Effects of Oxytocin Social
Support Preliminary Findings
From NIA R21 Biology of Resilience Oxytocin,
Social Relationships, and Health
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Stress-Buffering Effects of Oxytocin Social
Support Preliminary Findings
From NIA R21 Biology of Resilience Oxytocin,
Social Relationships, and Health
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Stress-Buffering Effects of Oxytocin Social
Support Preliminary Findings
From NIA R21 Biology of Resilience Oxytocin,
Social Relationships, and Health
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Neurobiological UnderpinningsA Cells to Society
Approach

• Link molecular / cellular information with higher
  level adaptational processes
• Molecular mechanisms underlying effects of
  emotions
• How do these get laid down over time?
• Set up trajectories for future outcomes?
• Translate questions derived from population-based
  research into experimental studies
• Elucidate mechanisms
• Address concerns of reverse causality or
  spuriousness

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Core Research Team

• Gail Adler, MD
• Jason Block, MD
• Markus Heinrichs, PhD
• Wendy Berry Mendes, PhD
• Research Assistants and Study MDs

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General Model of Emotion and Health

Social Context
Personality
Positive emotional responses
Benign appraisal
Negative emotional responses
Perceived stress
Appraisal of demands and coping capabilities
Physiological responses (immune, ANS, HPA)
Behavioral responses
Disease Processes
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Distress and Incident CHD Prospective
Epidemiologic Studies
Depression
Anxiety
From Kubzansky LD. Cleve Clin J Med, 74(Suppl
1)S67-S72, 2007.
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Pathways Between Emotion and CHD Cumulative
Effects

• Biological pathways (direct effects)
• SNS, HPA activation
• Electrical stability of the heart (HRV)
• Platelet aggregation and thrombosis
• Immune function/inflammation
• Social and behavioral pathways (indirect effects)
• Health behaviors (smoking, physical activity)
• Coping resources
• Social relationships (emotions promote / disrupt)

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Benefits of Healthy Psychological Functioning

• Flexibility
• Rapid recovery from negative experiences
• Enhanced resources
• Positive and negative emotions are not bipolar
  ends of a continuum
• Capacity for managing emotions

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General Model of Emotion and Health

Social Environment
Physical Environment
Personality / Temperament
Behavioral responses
Emotional Responses (positive or negative)
Health Disease
Biological responses
Neurobiology
Early Life Adolescence Adulthood
Later Life
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Childhood Psychological Attributes and Adult
Physical Health
Adjusted for SES, sex, race/ethnicity, child
health
From Kubzansky et al., Health Psychology, In
press.