This study examined the acute immunological effects of two laboratory stressors, expected to evoke distinct patterns of cardiac autonomic activity; namely an “active coping” time-paced memory test, and a “passive coping” stressful video showing surgical operations. We measured salivary S-IgA, IgA-subclasses (IgA1, IgA2), and secretory component (SC). SC is responsible for the transport of S-IgA across the epithelium, and thus a rate-determining step in S-IgA secretion. Thirty-two male undergraduates were subjected to both stressors and a control video (a didactic television program). The memory test induced a typical “fight-flight” response, characterized by increases in heart rate and blood pressure in association with a decrease in cardiac preejection period (PEP) and vagal tone. The surgical video produced a “conservation-withdrawal”-like response, characterized by an enhanced vagal tone, a decrease in heart rate, and a moderate sympathetic coactivation (as indicated by a shortened PEP and an increased systolic pressure). The memory test induced an increase in the concentration and, to a lesser extent, in the output of S-IgA, IgA], and SC. The output of IgA2 was not significantly affected. For the surgical video, a different pattern emerged: During stressor exposure S-IgA remained unaffected, against the background of a small increase in SC output. However, 10 min after the surgical video S-IgA levels had decreased. This decrease in S-IgA was paralleled by a decrease in IgA1, but not IgA2. We conclude that acute stress can have both enhancing and suppressive effects on secretory immunity, the IgA1 subclass in particular. The mechanisms that underlie these divergent responses may include stressor-specific patterns of autonomic activation.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the effects of exposure to job strain on independent predictors of cardiovascular disease (ambulatory blood pressure, heart rate, and heart rate variability).
METHODS: The participants comprised a homogeneous group of 159 healthy female nurses [mean age 35.9 (SD 8.5) years]. The choice of this population minimized variance attributable to gender, socioeconomic status, and work characteristics. Job demands, decision latitude, and social support were measured with the Karasek job content questionnaire, which was administered twice with an average interval of 12.2 months. The nurses’ scores for job demands and decision latitude on both occasions were used to define their job-strain category. Ambulatory blood pressure, heart rate, and heart rate variability were assessed on a workday and a day of leisure.
RESULTS: No effect on the ambulatory levels of blood pressure, heart rate, or heart rate variability was found for job strain by itself or in interaction with social support. In addition, job strain was not associated with differences in short-term or long-term physiological recovery during sleep after a workday or a day of leisure. High job demand was associated with higher systolic blood pressure at work and with higher diastolic blood pressure at work, but the latter association was found only when decision latitude was concurrently high, rather than low.
CONCLUSIONS: High job strain among young female nurses is not associated with an unfavorable ambulatory cardiovascular profile. The robust effect of job strain on male health appears to be less apparent for women.

Theorists have staked out two ostensibly opposing views of human crying as either an arousing behavior that signals distress or a soothing behavior that reduces arousal after distress. The present study examined whether these views of crying might be reconciled by attending to physiological changes that unfold over crying episodes. Sixty female students watched neutral and cry-eliciting films while autonomic physiology, including respiratory sinus arrhythmia and pre-ejection period, was assessed. Crying participants exhibited heart rate increases that rapidly subsided after crying onset. Crying onset was also associated with increases in respiratory sinus arrhythmia and slowed breathing. All crying effects subsided by 4 minutes after onset. It is possible that crying is both an arousing distress signal and a means to restore psychological and physiological balance, depending on how and when this complex behavior is interrogated.