title: Blunted responses to stress and reward: reflections on biological disengagement?
abstract: This paper brings together two largely distinct areas: biological responses to acute psychological stress and biological responses to reward. Research has associated blunted biological responses to acute psychological stress with a range of adverse health and behavioral outcomes; a separate line of research relates deficient biological reactions to reward with similar outcomes. This paper argues that both manifestations of blunting reflect a more general failure in biological responding to active challenges in life that require intact motivational and emotional processing systems.
authors.affiliation: School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT England, United Kingdom. Electronic address: A.T.Ginty@bham.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Annie T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Ginty
mesh_terms: D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D012201:Reward; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Heart rate; Reactivity; Reward; Stress