This Center will focus on mechanisms of mind-body interaction with an emphasis on emotion as a core intermediary level through which psychosocial influences and interventions exert their effects and thereby influence health. The Center builds upon the strength in research on emotion at Wisconsin. We conceptualize emotion as the key mediating variable through which social influences get transduced and impact upon the organism to influence autonomic, endocrine and immune function and thus effect health. Emotion is instantiated in elements of brain circuitry that have now been characterized. We highlight three regions-the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus-that play an important role in subserving emotion and in influencing other biological systems that have health-relevance. Project 1 will focus on later life resilience and vulnerability and will study psychosocial and biological processes in older women who have been followed through the major life transition of relocation. Project 2 will focus on well-being, symptom expression, endocrine and immune function in women with two musculoskeletal conditions, fibromyalgia (FMS) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In addition, this study will evaluate the impact of mindfulness meditation on emotion, symptom expression and immune and endocrine function in these patients. Project 3 will use samples from Projects 1 and 2 to study the functional neural circuitry of emotion (with fMRI), structural integrity of the hippocampus and peripheral psychophysiology of resilient and vulnerable individuals. In a second study, this project will also collect these measures in patients from Project 2 before and after they participate in the mindfulness meditation intervention, Project 4 will study the biology and behavior of free-ranging rhesus monkeys to predict their reactivity to the naturally occurring stress of leaving their natal group. Project 5 will evaluate the efficacy of a group exercise program in older women with breast cancer and will assess emotion-related constructs as well as endocrine and immune function to examine the mechanisms by which this intervention may have salubrious effects. Project 6 will investigate linkages among life course social inequities, emotion-related variables and adult physical health in the context of several large epidemiological surveys and longitudinal studies. These projects will be supported by Administrative; Statistics; Mind-self-report and interviews; and Body-biological measures, cores. We are ideally positioned to significantly advance our scientific understanding of the mechanisms of mind-body interaction.
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