title: Stability of individual differences in cellular immune responses to two different laboratory tasks.
abstract: To explore the stability of immune reactivity across laboratory tasks, we correlated enumerative and functional lymphocyte responses to a speech task and a mental arithmetic task, delivered on the same occasion of testing in 31 healthy undergraduates. Both tasks were associated with an increase in peripheral CD8+ and CD56+ cell populations, and a decrease in proliferative response to phytohemagglutinin (PHA) and ratio of CD4:CD8 cells. Intertask correlations were significant for the magnitude of change in proliferative responses at two different concentrations of PHA, r = 0.76, p < .0001 and r = 0.46, p < .05, and in numbers of circulating CD56+ cells, r = 0.46, p < .005. Concomitant heart rate and systolic blood pressure responses also correlated significantly over the two experimental tasks (heart rate: r = 0.52 and systolic blood pressure: r = 0.58. ps < .0005). These data provide initial evidence that interindividual variability of some cellular immune responses is moderately reproducible across different stimulus conditions, providing further evidence that it may denote a stable individual difference.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA. marsland@pitt.edu
authors.forename: Anna L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Marsland
authors.forename: Brent N
authors.initials: BN
authors.lastname: Henderson
authors.forename: William H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Chambers
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Baum
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology*; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology; D018414:CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000276:immunology*; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation / Q000276:immunology*; D008297:Male; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*; D011598:Psychoneuroimmunology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*