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The Relationship Between Stressful Life Events and Inflammation Among Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

  • Chapter
Book cover Neural and Neuroendocrine Mechanisms in Host Defense and Autoimmunity

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous system (CNS) affecting up to 350,000 people in the United States (Anderson et al., 1992; Jacobson et al., 1997; Noonan et al., 2002). As with many autoimmune diseases, it affects women at roughly twice the rate of men, and the prevalence appears to be increasing (Cooper and Stroehla, 2003; Jacobson et al., 1997). Common symptoms include, but are not limited to, loss of function or feeling in limbs, loss of bowel or bladder control, sexual dysfunction, debilitating fatigue, blindness due to optic neuritis, loss of balance, pain, cognitive dysfunction, and emotional changes (Mohr and Cox, 2001). There is a growing literature suggesting that stress may affect risk of exacerbation in patients with MS (Mohr et al., 2004). This chapter will briefly review pathology and pathogenesis of MS, examine the literature on stress in MS, describe the laboratory studies on response to stress, and propose three hypothesized mechanisms by which stress might affect risk of MS exacerbation.We will also briefly review the literature on psychosocial mediators of the relationship between stressful life events and MS inflammation and discuss future directions for research in humans.

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Authors
  1. David C. Mohr
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences and Veterinary Pathobiology College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843-4458

    C. Jane Welsh

  2. Department of Psychology College of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843-4225

    Mary W. Meagher

  3. Section on Neuroendocrine Immunology and Behavior, National Institute of Mental Health National Institutes of Health, Rockville, MD, 20892-9401

    Esther M. Sternberg

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© 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Mohr, D.C. (2006). The Relationship Between Stressful Life Events and Inflammation Among Patients with Multiple Sclerosis. In: Welsh, C.J., Meagher, M.W., Sternberg, E.M. (eds) Neural and Neuroendocrine Mechanisms in Host Defense and Autoimmunity. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-48334-4_13

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