Immune Measures in Behavioral Medicine Research: Procedures and Implications

Immune system activity is heavily influenced by the central nervous system. These interactions provide us the means to study mind–body interactions and how they affect health. In general, measures of immune system activity can be divided into two categories: those that are evident in the circulation and those that need to be elicited. For example, leukocytes can be collected from the circulation, counted, and their function accessed in cell culture. To test the ability of the immune system to respond to an experimental challenge more directly, studies involving wound healing, or involving the response to an infectious agent, can be performed. The purpose of this chapter is briefly to describe immune assays that are commonly employed in behavioral medicine research, including a rationale for their use as well as a brief description of the methodology. This chapter also describes previous studies in which circulatory and elicited immune measures have been studied in human subjects experiencing different psychological stressors, with an emphasis on studies involving medical students experiencing academic stress and caregivers of a spouse with Alzheimer’s disease. Finally, the chapter discusses the important role that the employment of animal models can play in studies of stress and health and in defining how nervous system activity can influence the immune response.