Stress Affects Human Brain: Study

Health Tips London: By studying social stress that moulds monkey immune system, researchers have shed light on how the stress of low socioeconomic status may impact human health and how individuals' bodies adapt after a shift in their social environment.
Researchers, who conducted the study with rhesus macaques at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, insisted that if a monkey's social status changes, her immune system changes along with it.
Researchers led by Jenny Tung, PhD, said they can predict a rhesus macaque's rank within a small group by examining gene expression levels in her immune cells.
Primate researchers can tell macaques' social rank by watching them engage in competitive interactions, such as grooming and accessing food and water. Tung and her colleagues studied 10 groups of female macaques (five each) in which researchers could manipulate individuals' social rank. Before being placed into new groups, all of the macaques started out as middle rank. "In the wild, macaques inherit their social rank from their mothers" Tung said.
"But in our research, the order of introduction determines rank; the newcomer is generally lower status. When some macaques' status changed after a newcomer arrived, so did their patterns of immune system gene activity."..... click here for read more