Chronic psychological stress causes intestinal barrier dysfunction and impairs host defense mechanisms mediated by corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) and mast cells; however, the exact pathways involved are unclear. Here we investigated the effect of chronic CRF administration on colonic permeability and ion transport functions in rats and the role of mast cells in maintaining the abnormalit...

Stress responses are affected by aging. However, studies on stress-related changes in feeding patterns with aging subject are minimal. We investigated feeding patterns induced by two psychological stress models, revealing characteristics of stress-induced feeding patterns as "meal" and "bout" (defined as the minimum feeding behavior parameters) in aged mice. Feeding behaviors of C57BL/6J mice w...

Psychological stress is known to attenuate body size and lean body mass. We tested the effects of 1, 3, or 7 days of two different models of psychological stress, 1 h of daily restraint stress (RS) or daily cage-switching stress (CS), on skeletal muscle size and atrophy-associated gene expression in mice. Thymus weights decreased in both RS and CS mice compared with unstressed controls, suggest...

The paper updates the word ”psychogenic”; suggests a pathophysiologic reading of the psychogenic contribute to CPP, via the stress-induced corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) signaling pathways, and differentiates predisposing, precipitating and maintaining factors; summarizes the pertinent evidence; focuses on the differential diagnosis between prominent “psychogenic” vs somatic etiology of C...

Within both basic philosophy of science and theoretical biology the idea that scientific disciplines can be organized in some type of hierarchy reflecting micro-to-macro levels of analysis has been widely discussed (e.g., Corbi & Prades, 2000; Kauffman, 2000). Yet psychologists have often eschewed philosophical schemes as largely irrelevant to their investigation of human behavior. Sheldon, Che...

Substantial resources are invested in psychological support for children orphaned or otherwise made vulnerable in the context of HIV/AIDS (OVC). However, there is still only limited scientific evidence for greater psychological distress amongst orphans and even less evidence for the effectiveness of current support strategies. Furthermore, programmes that address established mechanisms through ...

Sex differences exist in the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis following exposure to stress, and the stress response is further affected by aging. This study was conducted to elucidate the mechanism of hypophagia in aged female mice exposed to stress. Immediately after a stress load, aged female mice exhibited acute hypophagia and a rise in plasma corticosterone levels. The ...

Medically unexplained or functional somatic symptoms (FSS) in children constitute a major clinical problem. However, research data on FSS in young children are few, and epidemiological studies are hampered by lack of good standardised measures. The present thesis consists of two studies: In study one, we developed two measures to assess FSS in young children. The first measure is a parent i...

Underpowered studies persist in the psychological literature. This article examines reasons for their persistence and the effects on efforts to create a cumulative science. The "curse of multiplicities" plays a central role in the presentation. Most psychologists realize that testing multiple hypotheses in a single study affects the Type I error rate, but corresponding implications for power ha...