When grief heats up: Pro-inflammatory cytokines predict regional brain activation
Open accessAbstract
Background Pro-inflammatory cytokines are associated with sickness behaviors, a set of behaviors including low mood, which are orchestrated by the brain and described as shift in motivational state. The present study investigated the hypothesis that local inflammation is associated with greater subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sACC) activation in persons undergoing chronic stress.Methods Women undergoing the emotional stress of bereavement had fMRI scans during a grief elicitation task. Local inflammation was measured by salivary concentrations of two markers of pro-inflammatory cytokine activity (e.g., interleukin-1beta and soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor II).Results Analyses revealed that both inflammatory markers were positively associated with ventral prefrontal activation (e.g., sACC and orbitofrontal cortex) as well as other regions important in the emotional task such as noun retrieval (e.g., temporal cortex), and visual processing (e.g., cuneus and fusiform gyrus). In separate analyses, the ventral prefrontal activations correlated with free recall of grief-related word stimuli, but not neutral word stimuli.Conclusions This is the first study to demonstrate the relationship between emotional processing, regional brain activation and localized inflammation in a chronically stressed population of adults.
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Activation of the ventral mPFC (including the sgACC and the orbitofrontal cortex) due to a grief-elicitation task in women undergoing bereavement stress is associated with increased IL-1β and TNF receptor II.
“Activation of the ventral mPFC (including the sgACC and the orbitofrontal cortex) due to a grief-elicitation task in women undergoing bereavement stress is associated with increased IL-1β and TNF receptor II (TNF-II; O'Connor et al, 2009).”
From Inflammation in Fear- and Anxiety-Based Disorders: PTSD, GAD, and Beyond (2017) · cites this paper as O'Connor et al, 2009
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- Authors
- O'Connor, M.-F., Irwin, M. R., & Wellisch, D. K.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Corresponding author
- O'Connor, Mary-Frances
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-09
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 891-896
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2760985
- OpenAlex
- W2013551728
- Cited by
- 123
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 11 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 8.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- California Breast Cancer Research Program
- National Institute on Aging (K01AG028404)
- National Institute of Mental Health (L30 MH075087, T32MH019925)
- Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Biological Psychiatry › Tryptophan and brain disorders
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Keywords
- inflammatory cytokines, grief, bereavement, chronic stress, subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, ventral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, IL-1β, soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor II, salivary biomarkers, emotional processing, sickness behavior
- MeSH terms
- Brain, Brain Mapping, Emotions, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, Female, Grief, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cytokines, Receptors, Tumor Necrosis Factor, Type II, Interleukin-1beta
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