For today's episode, I had the honor of speaking with Dr. Megan Gunnar, a developmental psychologist who discusses her research on early life adversity and stress biology showing the importance of puberty as a window of biological flexibility. Dr. Gunnar discussed work from earlier in her career that led her to pursue these questions through an interdisciplinary lens. Tune in next month to hear more on the importance of adolescence from Dr. Ronald Dahl.

Dr. Megan Gunnar is a Regents Professor and Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota. Her doctoral training was in Developmental Psychology at Stanford University. She then completed her post-doctoral fellowship in Psychoneuroendocrinology at Stanford Medical School. Since then, she has built a remarkable career studying how stress biology affects neurobehavioral development and the processes that help children regulate stress hormones. Dr. Gunnar is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and has numerous lifetime achievement awards across many societies and disciplines including the Association for Psychological Science and the International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology. Learn more about Dr. Gunnar's research: https://innovation.umn.edu/gunnar-lab/

Topics Discussed:

• Developmental Psychoneuroendocrinology
• Stress System Calibration and Recalibration
• Stress Reactivity
• Puberty
• Chronic Stress
• HPA Axis
• Early Life Adversity

Papers Mentioned:

• Gunnar, M. R., DePasquale, C. E., Reid, B. M., Donzella, B., & Miller, B. S. (2019). Pubertal stress recalibration reverses the effects of early life stress in postinstitutionalized children. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(48), 23984–23988. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1909699116
• Gunnar, M. R., & Vazquez, D. M. (2001). Low cortisol and a flattening of expected daytime rhythm: Potential indices of risk in human development. Development and Psychopathology, 13(3), 515–538. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579401003066
• Engel, M. L., & Gunnar, M. R. (2020). The development of stress reactivity and regulation during human development. International review of neurobiology, 150, 41–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.irn.2019.11.003
• Gunnar, M. R. (2017). Social Buffering of Stress in Development: A Career Perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(3), 355–373. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616680612

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The Stress Puzzle is hosted by Dr. Ryan L. Brown (https://www.ryanlinnbrown.com/) and supported by the UCSF Stress Measurement Network, an NIH/NIA funded network which aims to better understand the relationship between stress and health by improving the measurement of stress in research studies. Learn more about available resources to support stress research at: www.stressmeasurement.org.

Have burning questions about stress? Email us at stresspuzzlepod@gmail.com and we may feature your question in a future episode!

Can you believe it's almost the end of 2024?! Join me for a conversation with Dr. Aric Prather about stress, sleep, and social experiences at the holidays + what we know about links between those and our susceptibility to infections and severity of illness. We chatted about foundational knowledge drawn from studies where people are experimentally exposed to rhinovirus (aka the common cold) before moving to a conversation about health behaviors through the holidays. We hope this episode encourages you to indulge in social support and lean into the joy of this holiday season!

Dr. Aric Prather is a Professor and Pritzker Family Fund Endowed Chair in Health and Community in the Department of Psychiatry and Behaviroal Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. He co-directs the UCSF Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions Center, is the Director of the UCSF Center for Health and Community, and Associate Director of the Stress Measurement Network. His research focuses primarily on links between sleep and health, particularly immune health, and his work is regularly featured in the New York TImes, NPR, and the Today Show.

Topics Discussed:

• Psychoneuroimmunology
• Susceptibility to Illness
• Severity of Illness
• Health Behaviors
• Sleep and Health
• Glucocorticoid Resistance
• Common Cold/Rhinovirus
• Social Support
• Resilience and Self-Care

Research Mentioned:

• Cohen S. Keynote Presentation at the Eight International Congress of Behavioral Medicine: the Pittsburgh common cold studies: psychosocial predictors of susceptibility to respiratory infectious illness. Int J Behav Med. 2005;12(3):123-31.
• Prather, AA, Janicki-Deverts, D, Hall, MH, & Cohen, S. Behaviorally Assessed Sleep and Susceptibility to the Common Cold. Sleep. 2015;38(9):1353–1359.
• Cohen S, Janicki-Deverts D, Turner RB, Doyle WJ. Does hugging provide stress-buffering social support? A study of susceptibility to upper respiratory infection and illness. Psychol Sci. 2015 Feb;26(2):135-47.
• Access the Pittsburgh Common Cold Study data for yourself!
• Spiegel K, Rey AE, Cheylus A, Ayling K, Benedict C, Lange T, Prather AA, Taylor DJ, Irwin MR, Van Cauter E. A meta-analysis of the associations between insufficient sleep duration and antibody response to vaccination. Curr Biol. 2023 Mar 13;33(5):998-1005.e2.
• Newman DB, Gordon AM, Prather AA, Berry Mendes W. Examining Daily Associations Among Sleep, Stress, and Blood Pressure Across Adulthood. Ann Behav Med. 2023 May 23;57(6):453-462.

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The Stress Puzzle is hosted by Dr. Ryan L. Brown (https://www.ryanlinnbrown.com/) and
supported by the UCSF Stress Measurement Network, an NIH/NIA funded network which
aims to better understand the relationship between stress and health by improving the
measurement of stress in research studies. Learn more about available resources to support
stress research at: www.stressmeasurement.org.

Have burning questions about stress? Email us at stresspuzzlepod@gmail.com and we may
feature your question in a future episode!

Welcome back to the Stress Puzzle! This is the second of two episodes highlighting winners of the Stress Measurement Network's (SMN) Stress Science Paper Award. Today we'll hear from the lead author of the winning paper in the Human Empirical/Clinical category, Dr. Tené Lewis. We discussed the findings of their paper, which highlights the importance of stress experienced by close loved ones (e.g., family, friends) for African-American women's cardiovascular health. We also chatted about the strength of her team's methodology, how they disseminate the research to women who participated in their study, and the importance of these findings for conversations around self-care, care work (whether formal or informal), and the enormous responsibility that falls to women who end up as the social safety net.

Dr. Tené Lewis is a Professor in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University where she studies health psychology and psychosocial epidemiology with an emphasis on cardiovascular health in women. Much of her research investigates the psychological and social factors underlying cardiovascular health disparities for African-American women compared to women of other racial or ethnic groups. Dr. Lewis’ research has been honored by the Health Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association, as well as the recently renamed Society for Biopsychosocial Science and Medicine. Her work has been featured by NPR, Essence Magazine, and the Washington Post.

SMN Stress Science Paper Award Winner (Human Empirical/Clinical):

• Lewis TT, Parker R, Murden R, Spikes T, Erving C, McKinnon II, Van Dyke ME, Booker B, Quyummi A, Vaccarino V, Moore RH. Network stressors, personal stressors, and ambulatory blood pressure in African-American women - Does Superwoman Schema Play a Role? Health Psychol. 2023 Jul;42(7):485-495. doi: 10.1037/hea0001309.

Topics Discussed:

• Network stressors vs. personal stressors
• Cardiovascular risk
• African American women’s health
• Social networks and social support
• Social safety nets
• Ambulatory blood pressure
• Superwoman Schema
• Dissemination
• Self-care
• Ecological validity

Additional Research Mentioned:

• Woods-Giscombé CL, Lobel M, Zimmer C, Wiley Cené C, Corbie-Smith G. Whose stress is making me sick? Network-stress and emotional distress in African-American women. Issues Ment Health Nurs. 2015;36(9):710-7. doi: 10.3109/01612840.2015.1011759. PMID: 26440874; PMCID: PMC7220100.
• Woods-Giscombé CL. Superwoman schema: African American women's views on stress, strength, and health. Qual Health Res. 2010 May;20(5):668-83. doi: 10.1177/1049732310361892. Epub 2010 Feb 12. PMID: 20154298; PMCID: PMC3072704.
• Work of Jasmine Abrams (e.g., Abrams JA, Hill A, Maxwell M. Underneath the Mask of the Strong Black Woman Schema: Disentangling Influences of Strength and Self-Silencing on Depressive Symptoms among U.S. Black Women. Sex Roles. 2019 May;80(9-10):517-526. doi: 10.1007/s11199-018-0956-y)
• Holding it Together: How women became America's safety net by Jessica Calcaro

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The Stress Puzzle is hosted by Dr. Ryan L. Brown (https://www.ryanlinnbrown.com/) and
supported by the UCSF Stress Measurement Network, an NIH/NIA funded network which
aims to better understand the relationship between stress and health by improving the
measurement of stress in research studies. Learn more about available resources to support
stress research at: www.stressmeasurement.org.

Have burning questions about stress? Email us at stresspuzzlepod@gmail.com and we may
feature your question in a future episode!