Effect of metabolic factors on stress and relaxation

One research focus of mine lies on the modulating effect of glucose on the stress and relaxation response. Aligning with work from others, we found that glucose can increase the cortisol stress response, but the mechanisms underlying this amplification and potential consequences for behaviour remain poorly understood. In a recent preprint, we showed that the amplificatory effect of glucose does not seem to alter what we remember from a stressful period.

In two ongoing projects, I investigate the potential mediating role of insulin, which has been proposed to play a central role in this context:

• Sweet Stress investigates the effect of glucose and insulin on the neural, endocrine and cardiovascular stress response and on risk taking.
• Sweet Memories investigates the effect of glucose and insulin on the endocrine and cardiovascular stress response and long-term memory.

 

In related projects, I studied the effect of glucose on the cardiac relaxation response. While glucose increases cardiac sympathetic activity (indexed by pre-ejection period), it has little effect on cardiac parasympathetic reactivity to slow-paced breathing and a shoulder massage. The latter result was illustrated by Dr. Sophie Elschner in a stellar science comic!

Stress-buffering and relaxation-promoting interventions

Another focus of my work is the effect of psychological interventions that buffer stress reactions and/or promote relaxation. On this realm, we have investigated whether everyday activity and fitness can have a stress-buffering effect and whether interventions such as ‘energy priming’ (‘This drink contains sugar and gives you energy’) or laughter yoga change the psychophysiological stress response. I have also used mindfulness- and relaxation-based methods such as massages and breathing exercises to induce psychophysiological relaxation responses in the laboratory. In future projects, I would like to further investigate the mechanisms, determinants and consequences of such stress buffering and relaxation effects.

Long-term health consequences of stress in early life

A third research focus of mine lies on the link between childhood trauma, abuse and neglect on health in adulthood. Chronic, severe stress in sensitive developmental phases such as childhood and adolescence has been linked to long-term reprogramming of the stress- and relaxation-responsive systems, which is associated with an increased risk of psychopathology. At the University Psychiatric Clinics of Basel, I worked with data of a longitudinal study in a high risk sample of care leavers in Switzerland. Participants underwent an intensive phenotyping in young adulthood which included clinical interviews, self-reports on health, and the recording of different biomarkers, for example epigenetics, oxidative stress and telomere length. In this highly burdened sample, we showed that childhood trauma is liked to epigenetic age deceleration and that abuse in early childhood and peer violence in late adolescence were significant predictors of externalizing problems in adulthood.