Psychological Effects of Helping Behavior in Older Adults

老年人帮助行为的心理影响

• 批准号: 9269723
• 负责人: STEPHANIE L BROWN
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: STATE UNIVERSITY NEW YORK STONY BROOK
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-15 至 2019-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9269723
• 关键词: Address; Age; Aging; Attention; Behavior; Behavior Therapy; Behavioral; Behavioral Sciences; Biological Markers; Brain; Buffers; Cardiovascular system; Child Rearing; Chronic; Chronic stress; Clinic; Disease; Ecological momentary assessment; Elderly; Emotional; Endocrine system; Event; Family member; Female; Friends; Funding; Generations; Growth; Health; Health Benefit; Helping Behavior; Hormones; Imagery; Immune system; Individual; Inflammation; Intervention; Investigation; Laboratories; Lead; Link; Longevity; Longitudinal Studies; Magnetic Resonance; Malignant Neoplasms; Mass Spectrum Analysis; Measures; Mediating; Mediator of activation protein; Medical Research; Mental Health; Methods; Modeling; Morbidity - disease rate; Motivation; NIH Program Announcements; Neurobiology; Neurohormones; Neurologic; Outcome; Oxytocin; Participant; Patient Self-Report; Physiological; Procedures; Process; Progesterone; Publishing; Randomized; Reaction Time; Regulation; Reporting; Risk Factors; Role; Sampling; Social Behavior; Social isolation; Stress; Testing; Time; Translations; Woman; Work; age related; aged; base; behavioral health; cytokine; design; gamma-Aminobutyric Acid; human old age (65+); immune function; improved; inflammatory marker; mortality; neurobehavioral; neurophysiology; physical conditioning; psychologic; psychosocial; relating to nervous system; research study; response; social; stress management; therapy design

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Stress and inflammation are implicated in 7 out of the 10 leading causes of mortality. Our preliminary work suggests that helping behavior leads to better health and longevity by regulating stress and inflammation. We will test this possibility among older adults by experimentally manipulating helping behavior (Experiments 1 and 2) and by observing naturally occurring helping behavior longitudinally (Study 3). We aim to identify neurohormonal mediators circuitry and hormones of the relationship between helping others and health, including long-term changes in biomarkers for chronic inflammation. Experiment 1 will use a between-subjects design to experimentally manipulate emotional closeness (yes, no) and helping behavior (help, control activity). Sixty women (aged 65 and over) will be assigned randomly to one of four conditions: help-close partner; help- stranger; closeness/control; no closeness/control. Following the helping or control activity (both are a reaction time task in an fMRI scanner), all participants will be exposed to a stress induction, also in the scanner. Dependent measures will include neural responses, oxytocin, stress hormones, and cytokines and growth factors. Experiment 2 will be identical in procedure except an additional 30 participants will be asked to bring in a similar-aged female family member or friend (within 10 years), and they will be randomly assigned to either help the friend/family member or to a control activity. Across both experiments, we will test the hypothesis that brain activity and oxytocin associated with helping a close partner will improve stress regulation (H1) and immune function (H2). Study 3 will use ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methods to follow participants from the Experiments, plus an additional 30 women (65 and over), over the course of one year (total N=120) to determine whether those who report higher levels of naturally occurring helping behavior with close others also show lower levels of stress hormones (H1) and markers of inflammation (H2). If successful, we believe this work will (a) inform medical research focused on stress, inflammation, disease, and aging, and (b) stimulate a new generation of non-invasive, pro-social behavioral interventions designed to regulate stress, and thereby reduce morbidity and mortality.

 描述（由申请人提供）：应激和炎症与10种主要死亡原因中的7种有关。我们的初步工作表明，帮助行为通过调节压力和炎症导致更好的健康和长寿。我们将通过实验性地操纵帮助行为（实验1和2）和纵向观察自然发生的帮助行为（研究3）来测试老年人的这种可能性。我们的目标是确定帮助他人和健康之间关系的神经激素介质回路和激素，包括慢性炎症生物标志物的长期变化。实验1将使用受试者间设计来实验性地操纵情感亲密度（是，否）和帮助行为（帮助，控制活动）。60名妇女（65岁及以上）将被随机分配到四个条件之一：帮助亲密的伙伴;帮助陌生人;亲密/控制;没有亲密/控制。在帮助或控制活动（两者都是功能磁共振成像扫描仪中的反应时间任务）之后，所有参与者都将暴露于压力诱导，也是在扫描仪中。依赖性测量将包括神经反应、催产素、应激激素、细胞因子和生长因子。实验2的程序相同，除了额外的30名参与者将被要求带来一个年龄相仿的女性家庭成员或朋友（10年内），他们将被随机分配到帮助朋友/家庭成员或控制活动。在这两个实验中，我们将测试与帮助亲密伴侣相关的大脑活动和催产素将改善压力调节（H1）和免疫功能（H2）的假设。研究3将使用生态瞬时评估（EMA）方法来跟踪实验参与者，加上另外30名女性（65岁及以上），在一年的时间内（总N=120），以确定那些报告与亲密他人自然发生的帮助行为水平较高的人是否也表现出较低水平的压力激素（H1）和炎症标志物（H2）。如果成功，我们相信这项工作将（a）为专注于压力，炎症，疾病和衰老的医学研究提供信息，（B）刺激新一代非侵入性，亲社会行为干预措施，旨在调节压力，从而降低发病率和死亡率。