Acute stress markers in humans: Response of plasma glucose, cortisol and prolactin to two examinations differing in the anxiety they provoke
Acute stress markers in humans: Response of plasma glucose, cortisol and prolactin to two examinations differing in the anxiety they provoke
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DOI：
10.1016/0306-4530(95)00048-8
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发表时间：
1996-01-01
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Valdes, M
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Armario, A;Marti, O;Valdes, M
虽然内分泌反应的心理压力源已被广泛研究，在动物和人类，这些变量的敏感性，暴露于心理压力的情况下所经历的压力强度尚未在人类中进行研究。在目前的工作中，这是通过测量血糖，皮质醇和催乳素的血浆水平在女医学生之前，采取两种考试明显不同的焦虑，他们挑起。结果发现，这两种考试都增加了焦虑，但生理考试（EPh）比心理考试（EPs）引起更高的焦虑。催乳素增加，以应对这两项检查相比，非应激条件下，但其水平更大的EPh比在EP。皮质醇遵循相同的模式，催乳素，但仅略有增加的EP。最后，他对两次考试的反应都是一样的。一个显着的正相关关系被发现之间的焦虑和葡萄糖，皮质醇和催乳素之间的数据时，从所有的情况都包括在内。根据这些结果，这三个变量似乎可以作为人类压力的假定标志物，尽管葡萄糖可能反映了与皮质醇和催乳素不同的潜在心理过程。此外，首次发现催乳素能够区分不同强度的压力情况。这些生理变量对其他压力情况的反应在定量和定性方面都不同，值得进一步研究。
Although the endocrine response to psychological stressors has been extensively studied both in animals and humans, the sensitivity of these variables to the intensity of stress experienced by exposure to psychologically stressful situations has not been studied in humans. In the present work this was assessed by measuring plasma levels of glucose, cortisol and prolactin in female medical students just before taking two examinations clearly differing in the anxiety they provoke. It was found that both examinations increased anxiety just before taking them, but the physiology examination (EPh) caused higher anxiety than the psychology (EPs). Prolactin increased in response to both examinations as compared to the non-stress condition, but its levels were greater in the EPh than in the EPs. Cortisol followed the same pattern as prolactin, but increased only marginally in the EPs. Finally, glycemia rose to the same extent in response to both examinations. A significant positive correlation was found between anxiety and glucose, and between cortisol and prolactin when data from all situations were included. On the basis of these results, it appears that the three variables might be useful as putative markers of stress in humans, although glucose might reflect different underlying psychological processes than cortisol and prolactin. In addition, it was found for the first time that prolactin is able to discriminate between stressful situations of different intensity. The response of these physiological variables to other stressful situations differing both in quantitative and in qualitative terms merits to be studied in further work.