The Integration of Salivary Immunoglobulin A by the Repetitive Stressful Task

Recent psychophysiological studies have revealed that the human endocrine and immune secretion changes its level sensitively according to participants' subjective stress and relaxation. In this study, one of the major secretory immune substances, salivary Immunoglobulin A (IgA), was assessed to investigate the human secretion response induced by a short-term stress. In the experiments, subjects were required to conduct a short period of a calculation task repeatedly with intervals. The result indicated that the IgA changed clearly along with the calculation/interval schedule. Thus the IgA could be assumed to reflect the participants' subjective stress level. Besides, the integrative change of IgA was also observed depending on the duration of the stressful task. The relatively slower and long lasting modulation feature of the secretion response could result in such an integrative change. This, in turn, shows the possibility of estimating the intermittent workload stress in our daily life by tracing IgA.