States of acute psychosocial stress stimulate the secretion of a key antibody-like protein in the first immune defense against infection, but only after puberty. However, children with a history of abuse exhibit a response similar to that of adolescents, which suggests an early maturation of the immune system in these subjects, according to an international study with the participation of several groups from the Mental Health CIBER ( CIBERSAM) coordinated by Professor Lourdes Fañanás, from the Faculty of Biology and the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB).
In this study, published in Brain Behavior and Immunity, researchers from the CIBERSAM groups at the Hospital Clinic/IDIBAPS, Hospital Gregorio Marañón and Hospital Puerta de Hierro in Madrid and the Hospital Universitario de Álava have also participated. In addition, it has had the collaboration of researchers from the Adolescent Crisis Unit (UCA) of the Sisters Hospitallers of Sant Boi and the Day Hospital for adolescents of Orienta-Gavà.
In this study, the behavior of secretory immunoglobulin A (s-IgA) in saliva against acute psychosocial stress in children and adolescents has been investigated, exploring its variations according to the stage of development, childhood or postpubertal, and the existence of a history of abuse. childish.
To this end, 94 children and adolescents aged 7 to 17 years (54 with a psychiatric diagnosis) belonging to a large state-wide multicenter study (EPI-Young Stress Project) were investigated. To evaluate their biological reactivity against stress, five saliva samples were obtained for each subject during the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST-C), a standardized protocol that allows assessing the biological response against acute psychosocial stress in a controlled and reliable way. ; s-IgA and cortisol levels were analyzed in these samples.
As explained by the Principal Investigator of the CIBERSAM group G08 at the UB, Lourdes Fañanás, “a greater secretion of s-IgA has been associated with acute psychosocial stress in adolescents, but not in children. This data was already partially known and has been ratified in this new sample of the young population. However, this possible marker had not been investigated in children and adolescents with a history of child abuse, a condition of great psychological stress and in which affected children usually live chronically.
Exposure to stress leads to the activation of various biological processes that aim to prepare an effective response to a threatening situation and then restore homeostasis once the stressor has ended. The changes involved in the stress response depend on the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and each of them involves a rapid adaptive response that is known as the “fight or flight response”. . In parallel, the SNS activates the immune system, characterized by the activation of inflammatory processes and that could be altered after long periods of chronic stress (such as abuse).
Symptoms of accelerated biological aging
This study, therefore, has shown that salivary s-IgA could be a feasible biomarker to explore the peripheral immune response to stress in young populations. In particular, it has been observed that, although children and adolescents showed similar basal levels of s-IgA, their reactivity to stress seemed to differ, because the former showed an increase after the stressor and a rapid recovery, while children and girls prepubertal children did not show an s-IgA response.
“However, we observed that children exposed to situations of abuse exhibited a stress response pattern similar to that of adolescents”, indicates Laia Marqués, CIBERSAM researcher at the UB and first author of the work.
Consequently, adds Águeda Castro, co-author of this work, “this phenomenon would be in line with generalized theories that defend that individuals exposed to a wide range of harmful exposures, whether of a psychosocial or chemical nature, experience what is known as accelerated biological aging. But more studies are required to elucidate the role of abuse history in the regulation of the immune system in the earliest stages of development.”
In addition, indicates Laia Marqués, “these alterations in the immune system associated with abuse can have a strong impact, since the deregulation of this system affects the body globally and has been related to different physical and mental pathologies in the short and long term. term”.
Source: CIBERSAM
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