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Background: Insomnia is very common in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Poor sleep is associated with immune alterations but the actual impact on health resulting from such immune changes has rarely been studied. The aim of this study was to evaluate, in women treated with chemotherapy for breast or gynecological cancer, the relationships between insomnia, immunity, and the occurrence of infections. Method: Fifty-two patients were assessed before chemotherapy (Time [T]1), on 4 occasions during the first 2 cycles of chemotherapy (i.e., on immunosuppression and recovery weeks; T2–T5), at posttreatment (T6), and at 3-month (T7) and 6-month (T8) follow-ups. A clinical interview was administered to assess insomnia (Insomnia Interview Schedule) and the occurrence of infections. Patients were categorized into 1 of these 3 subgroups on the basis of the insomnia interview at T1: good sleepers (GS), insomnia symptoms (SX), and insomnia syndrome (SYN). Finally, blood samples were collected at each time point (T1–T8) to measure several immune parameters (e.g., neutrophils, lymphocytes). Results: Mixed-model analyses of covariance revealed that SYN patients at T1 had significantly lower counts of some blood cells after chemotherapy (T6) as compared to GS (i.e., total white blood cells and neutrophils) and as compared to GS and SX patients (i.e., total lymphocytes, CD3+ and CD4+ cells). At T8, SYN patients at T1 showed significantly lower lymphocytes, CD3+ and CD4+ counts as compared to SX patients. Finally, SYN patients at T1 were at a significantly higher risk of reporting infectious episodes at T5 as compared to SX patients. Conclusions: Although replication is warranted, these results suggest that prechemotherapy insomnia may potentiate the vulnerability to show immune alterations and develop infections due to chemotherapy during the cancer care trajectory. Overall, they further emphasize the need to provide effective treatments for sleep difficulties in patients undergoing chemotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Although positive marital quality is usually associated with lower chronic low-grade inflammation, not everyone benefits equally from spousal support. Exposure to early life adversity (ELA) has been proposed as a factor that may impede the social buffering effect of positive social relationships. The goal of this study was to test whether ELA would moderate the impact of marital quality on inflammation. Method: This cross-sectional study examined 168 partnered middle-aged women who either were experiencing a current chronic caregiving stressor, raising an adolescent with an autism spectrum disorder or intellectual disability, or who had the normative parenting experience of raising a typically developing adolescent. Participants completed self-report questionnaires on marital satisfaction, dyadic coping, and perceived partner responsiveness to create a composite index of marital quality, and they filled out the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire to assess ELA exposure. Participants also provided plasma samples for the assessment of interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α, and C-reactive protein, three circulating biomarkers of inflammation. Results: ELA moderated the association between marital quality and inflammation. Among individuals who endorsed lower ELA exposure, there was a significant, negative association between marital quality and interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α levels. However, this association was attenuated and not statistically significant among participants who reported higher ELA exposure. This effect was independent of current chronic stress. Conclusions: These findings suggest that ELA may impair the social buffering effect of marital quality on inflammation. This impaired social buffering effect may be another mechanism through which ELA promotes sustained elevations in inflammation over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Marital quality impacts inflammatory processes. Dyadic coping, a spousal support process in which members of a couple work together to cope with the stressors that 1 or both partners are facing, is associated with higher marital satisfaction and reduced psychological distress. The goal of the present study was to evaluate whether dyadic coping is also related to systemic inflammation among individuals facing chronic parenting stress. Method: Forty-four parents of children with an autism spectrum disorder completed self-report questionnaires on dyadic coping, marital satisfaction, perceived social support, and caregiving burden. They also provided a blood sample for C-reactive protein (CRP) analysis, a marker of systemic inflammation. Results: Higher positive dyadic coping was significantly associated with lower circulating CRP, while negative dyadic coping was unrelated to CRP. After adjusting for individual differences in marital satisfaction, perceived social support, and caregiving burden, positive dyadic coping became marginally associated with CRP. Conclusion: Positive dyadic coping is a specific interpersonal process that may modulate systemic inflammation among individuals exposed to chronic stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Acute laboratory Stressors elicit elevations in serum levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP). Chronic Stressors, such as family dementia caregiving, promote a state of chronic low-grade elevation in circulating inflammatory markers. The recurrent daily Stressors associated with chronic stress may lead to repeated and sustained activation of the physiological stress systems. The present study evaluated the possibility that greater exposure and reactivity to daily Stressors fueled increased levels of circulating inflammatory markers among family dementia caregivers, compared with noncaregiving controls. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 53 caregivers and 77 noncaregiving controls. A semistructured interview assessed the occurrence of daily Stressors in the past 24 h. A blood sample provided data on two inflammatory markers, C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). Results: Caregivers were more likely to experience multiple Stressors in the past 24 h than noncaregiving controls. The occurrence of multiple daily Stressors was associated with greater serum IL-6 and CRP levels. The greater occurrence of daily Stressors in the past 24 h partially mediated the relationship between dementia caregiving and CRP levels. Conclusion: These results suggest that the cumulative effect of daily Stressors promotes elevations in inflammatory markers. Greater exposure to daily Stressors may be a psychobiological mechanism leading to elevations in CRP levels among family dementia caregivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This cross-sectional study examines associations between cardiac vagal control and mainstream acculturation by systematically investigating the independent contributions of resting, reactivity, and recovery Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA)--physiological factors contributing to adaptive functioning, including social engagement capacity. This study also examines the moderating role of RSA reactivity in associations between perceived ethnic discrimination and mainstream acculturation. Method: The sample comprised 111 migrants from Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) to Montreal, QC, Canada. On average, participants (60 women) were 31 years old and had immigrated 7 years prior to the study. The study design was cross-sectional. We collected both psychophysiological (electrocardiogram) and selfreport questionnaire data. Results: All three facets of cardiac vagal control are independently associated with mainstream acculturation: Higher mainstream acculturation was associated with higher resting RSA (β = .24), lower RSA reactivity (β = -.27), and higher recovery RSA (β = .26), controlling for several theoretically relevant covariates. Furthermore, lower RSA reactivity to a discrimination-recall task dampened the relation between perceived discrimination and mainstream acculturation (interaction β = -.20). Conclusions: This study replicates and extends prior work linking RSA and mainstream acculturation using a sample of racialized and marginalized migrants. It provides evidence that RSA is related to migrants' adoption of the mainstream culture and may modulate how they handle perceived ethnic discrimination. Thus, this study also provides evidence that RSA is tied to how individuals successfully navigate novel social environments, including novel cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discrete emotion theory of affective aging postulates that anger, but not sadness, becomes increasingly maladaptive during older adulthood in predicting health-relevant physiological processes and chronic disease (Kunzmann & Wrosch, 2018). However, it is largely unknown whether different negative emotions have distinct functional consequences in the development of older adults' physical disease. To start examining this possibility, we investigated whether older adults' daily experiences of anger and sadness were differentially associated with two biomarkers of chronic low-grade inflammation (interleukin-6 [IL-6] and C-reactive protein [CRP]) and the number of chronic illnesses (e.g., heart disease, cancer, etc.). In addition, we examined whether such divergent associations would become paramount in advanced, as compared with early, old age. A community-dwelling study of 226 older adults (age 59 to 93; M = 74.99, SD = 7.70) assessed participants' anger and sadness over 1 week, inflammatory processes, number of chronic illnesses, and relevant covariates. Regression analysis showed that anger predicted higher levels of IL-6 and chronic illness in advanced, but not in early, old age. The age effect of anger on chronic illness was mediated by increased IL-6 levels. Sadness exerted a reversed, but nonsignificant, association with IL-6 and chronic illness, independent of age. No emotion or age effects were obtained for CRP. The study's findings inform theories of health, emotion, and life span development by pointing to the age-related importance of discrete negative emotions in predicting a major physiological pathway to physical health across older adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Close relationships are an important social context in which emotional experiences, regulation, and coregulation unfold. This interpersonal emotion regulation process is likely intertwined with the self-regulatory capacities and social skills of each individual dyad member. This study aimed to examine whether respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a physiological marker related to self-regulation, moderates the impact of rumination, a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy, on couples' conflict. A dyadic, longitudinal design examined the association among RSA, rumination, and couples' conflict in a sample of 83 cohabiting romantic partners raising young children. At baseline, rumination and RSA from each romantic partner were assessed. Couples' conflict was reported at 3 time points over the following 12 months. Actor-partner interdependence modeling examined the mutual contributions of each couple member's rumination to couples' conflict, as well as the moderating impact of RSA. Results indicated that rumination from both members of the dyad were independently associated with couples' conflict across the 12-month period. Furthermore, RSA moderated the association between one's partner's rumination and couples' conflict, such that high actor RSA attenuated the positive association between partner's rumination and couples' conflict. The findings highlight the interdependent nature of emotion regulation within close relationships, and the impact of RSA on interpersonal emotion regulation processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]