Michael R Irwin
Biographic Data
| ID | 1660723 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael R Irwin |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael R |
| FAMILY NAME | Irwin |
| SIGNATURE | IRWIN M R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Los Angeles |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1502-8431 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 55 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Family meals are associated with lower substance use in female adolescents
Adolescents, especially female youth, who have more family meals tend to be at lower risk for substance use. The present study tested whether family meals relate to substance use count and frequency during high school, whether associations differ by gender, and whether other family‐related variables explain these associations. A community sample of 316 adolescents ( M age = 16.40, SD = 0.74; 56.96% female; 41.77% Latine, 23.10% Asian American, 29…
Sleep Disturbance as a Mediator of Lung Cancer Stigma on Psychological Distress and Physical Symptom Burden
OBJECTIVE: This study tested sleep disturbance as a mediator through which stigma and discrimination predict psychological distress and physical symptom burden in adults with lung cancer. METHODS: Lung cancer patients on active oncological treatment ( N = 108; 74.1% stage IV) completed questionnaires on lung cancer stigma, sleep, distress, and physical symptoms at study entry and at 6- and 12-week follow-up. Mediation analyses were conducted to i…
Everyday discrimination, emotion, and daily interactions during adolescence
The present study examined whether everyday discrimination relates to the frequency of adolescents' positive and negative daily social interactions and whether these associations are driven by anger and positive emotion. Adolescents (N = 334) participated in a three-wave longitudinal study, in which they completed surveys regarding everyday discrimination, anger, and positive emotion, as well as 15 daily reports of conflict and getting along with…
The Hidden Violence of the State on Prisoners: Night Checks
The Relationship Between Family Socioeconomic Status and Adolescent Sleep and Diurnal Cortisol
OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the associations between indices of family socioeconomic status and sleep during adolescence and to examine whether measures of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning mediate the observed associations. METHODS: A total of 350 ethnically diverse adolescents (57% female; mean [standard deviation] age wave 1 = 16.4 [0.7] years) completed a three-wave longitudinal study in which sleep and cort…
Sleep–Wake Timings in Adolescence: Chronotype Development and Associations with Adjustment
Discrimination and health: A dyadic approach
This study examined how discrimination changes over time, how discrimination is related to health and substance use, and whether discrimination spills over to affect the health of family members. Parent-adolescent dyads (N = 341) completed measures of discrimination, physical health, mental health, and substance use over 5 years. Actor-Partner Interdependence Models indicated that individuals' experiences of discrimination can spill over to some …
Generativity and Social Well-Being in Older Women: Expectations Regarding Aging Matter
These results highlight the importance of psychological factors, such as ERA, in moderating the efficacy of interventions to promote social well-being in older adults
Exploring the role of gratitude and support-giving on inflammatory outcomes
Although there has been much interest in understanding the effect of gratitude on health-related outcomes, this remains an understudied area of research, particularly regarding mechanisms and measurement of biological outcomes. The present study explored whether a gratitude intervention could reduce inflammatory outcomes and whether this occurred through increased support-giving. Healthy women ( n = 76) were randomly assigned to a 6-week gratitud…
Handbook of Psychophysiology
Cortisol Awakening Response as a Prospective Risk Factor for Depressive Symptoms in Women After Treatment for Breast Cancer
OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to investigate hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis) functioning as a neurobiological risk factor for depressive symptoms in an ongoing longitudinal, observational study of women undergoing treatment and recovery from breast cancer. Many women with breast cancer experience depressive symptoms that interfere with their treatment, recovery, and quality of life. Psychosocial risk factors for depression am…
Reciprocal Relationship Between Sleep Macrostructure and Evening and Morning Cellular Inflammation in Rheumatoid Arthritis
OBJECTIVE: This study examined the reciprocal associations between sleep macrostructure and levels of cellular inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and controls. METHODS: RA patients (n = 24) and matched controls (n = 48) underwent all-night polysomnography, along with assessment of spontaneous- and Toll-like receptor-4-stimulated monocytic production of tumor necrosis factor α (TNF) and interleukin (IL)-6 at 11:00 PM and 8:00 AM. R…
Sleep Disturbance, Sleep Duration, and Inflammation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Cohort Studies and Experimental Sleep Deprivation
Sleep and Inflammation During Adolescence
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the associations between objective and subjective dimensions of adolescent sleep and C-reactive protein (CRP), a key biomarker of inflammation that predicts chronic health problems in adulthood, and whether the associations vary as a function of adolescents' age. METHODS: A total of 315 adolescents (14.5-18.4 years) wore wrist actigraphs at night to objectively estimate their sleep duration and variability across nights,…
Why Sleep Is Important for Health: A Psychoneuroimmunology Perspective
Sleep has a critical role in promoting health. Research over the past decade has documented that sleep disturbance has a powerful influence on the risk of infectious disease, the occurrence and progression of several major medical illnesses including cardiovascular disease and cancer, and the incidence of depression. Increasingly, the field has focused on identifying the biological mechanisms underlying these effects. This review highlights the i…
Socioeconomic Status, Daily Affective and Social Experiences, and Inflammation During Adolescence
OBJECTIVE: To assess the relation between socioeconomic status (SES) and inflammation during adolescence and determine whether daily affective and social experiences across a 15-day period mediate this relation. METHODS: Adolescents (n = 316) completed daily diary reports of positive affect, negative affect, and negative social interactions for 15 days and provided whole blood spot samples for the assessment of C-reactive protein (CRP). Parents p…
Is Inflammation a Link Between Self-Reported Health and Infectious Disease Risk
Blocking opioids attenuates physical warmth-induced feelings of social connection
Heartwarming" social experiences, when one feels interpersonally connected to others, have recently been linked with physical warmth. According to one theory (Panksepp, 1998), "social warmth" and physical warmth may be closely linked because both experiences are supported by similar neurobiological mechanisms; however, the neurochemical substrates underlying this overlap have not been explored. Here, an opioid antagonist, naltrexone, was administ…
Persistent Depressive Symptoms and Pain after Cardiac Surgery
OBJECTIVE: Our objectives were to describe trajectories of depressive symptoms and pain at hospital discharge and 6 weeks later and to examine the relationship of persistent depressive symptoms to pain. METHODS: Before and 6 weeks after hospital discharge, 251 patients undergoing cardiac surgery (mean [SD] age = 67.3 [9.5] years; 73% male) completed the Beck Depression Inventory and the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI). Patients were categorized into t…
From stress to inflammation and major depressive disorder: A social signal transduction theory of depression
Major life stressors, especially those involving interpersonal stress and social rejection, are among the strongest proximal risk factors for depression. In this review, we propose a biologically plausible, multilevel theory that describes neural, physiologic, molecular, and genomic mechanisms that link experiences of social-environmental stress with internal biological processes that drive depression pathogenesis. Central to this social signal t…
Robert Ader: Psychologist, Past President of the American Psychosomatic Society, and Pioneer in Psychoneuroimmunology Research
Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience, Los Angeles, CA [email protected]
Antagonistic pleiotropy at the human IL6 promoter confers genetic resilience to the pro-inflammatory effects of adverse social conditions in adolescence
The authors tested the evolutionary genetic hypothesis that the functional form of an asymmetrically risky Gene × Environment interaction will differ as a function of age-related antagonistic pleiotropy (i.e., show opposite effects in young vs. old individuals). Previous studies have identified a polymorphism in the human IL6 promoter (rs1800795; IL6-74 G/C) that interacts with adverse socioenvironmental conditions to promote chronic inflammation…
A Preliminary Study of Daily Interpersonal Stress and C-Reactive Protein Levels Among Adolescents From Latin American and European Backgrounds
OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between the experience of daily interpersonal stress and levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), an inflammatory marker that is a key indicator of cardiovascular risk, during the teenage years. METHODS: A total of 69 adolescents (Mage= 17.78 years) completed daily diary checklists each night for 14 days in which they reported their experience of negative interpersonal interactions in the domains of family, peers,…
Cardiac-related Hospitalization and/or Death Associated With Immune Dysregulation and Symptoms of Depression in Heart Failure Patients
OBJECTIVE: Congestive heart failure (CHF) patients with depressive symptoms have a greater risk of morbidity and mortality. Immune activity such as inflammation is increasingly implicated as underlying this relationship. However, it is unknown whether there is a broader spectrum of immune dysregulation beyond inflammatory activity. This study examined in CHF patients the relationship of depressive symptoms with cellular immune activity measured b…
Association Between Nocturnal Vagal Tone and Sleep Depth, Sleep Quality, and Fatigue in Alcohol Dependence
Background: This study examined whether nocturnal vagal tone as indexed by the high-frequency (HF) power component of heart rate variability is related to measures of sleep depth and daytime perceptions of sleep quality, sleepiness, and fatigue in alcohol dependence. Methods: Abstinent alcohol-dependent patients (n = 14) and comparison control subjects (n = 14) underwent all-night polysomnography along with assessment of heart rate variability du…
From stress to inflammation and major depressive disorder: A social signal transduction theory of depression
Major life stressors, especially those involving interpersonal stress and social rejection, are among the strongest proximal risk factors for depression. In this review, we propose a biologically plausible, multilevel theory that describes neural, physiologic, molecular, and genomic mechanisms that link experiences of social-environmental stress with internal biological processes that drive depression pathogenesis. Central to this social signal t…
Sleep–Wake Timings in Adolescence: Chronotype Development and Associations with Adjustment
Discrimination and health: A dyadic approach
This study examined how discrimination changes over time, how discrimination is related to health and substance use, and whether discrimination spills over to affect the health of family members. Parent-adolescent dyads (N = 341) completed measures of discrimination, physical health, mental health, and substance use over 5 years. Actor-Partner Interdependence Models indicated that individuals' experiences of discrimination can spill over to some …
Everyday discrimination, emotion, and daily interactions during adolescence
The present study examined whether everyday discrimination relates to the frequency of adolescents' positive and negative daily social interactions and whether these associations are driven by anger and positive emotion. Adolescents (N = 334) participated in a three-wave longitudinal study, in which they completed surveys regarding everyday discrimination, anger, and positive emotion, as well as 15 daily reports of conflict and getting along with…
Adapting milieu therapy to short-term psychiatric hospitalization of children
Electroencephalographic sleep and natural killer activity in depressed patients and control subjects
Insomnia is associated with a reduction of natural killer (NK) activity in depression independent of the severity of other depressive symptoms. This study extends these findings by exploring the relationship between objective electroencephalographic (EEG) assessment of sleep and values of NK activity in depressed patients (n = 23) and in control subjects (n = 17). The sleep EEG parameters total sleep time, sleep efficiency, and duration of nonREM…
Partial sleep deprivation reduces natural killer cell activity in humans
Sleep disturbance, measured by either subjective report or electroencephalographic (EEG) assessment of sleep, correlates with a reduction of natural killer (NK) cell activity in major depression. To test whether sleep loss independent of mood disturbance alters daytime values of cellular immune function, the effect of late-night partial sleep deprivation on NK cell activity was studied in 23 medically and psychiatrically healthy male volunteers. …
Chronic Life Stress Alters Sympathetic, Neuroendocrine, and Immune Responsivity to an Acute Psychological Stressor in Humans
OBJECTIVE: Life stress is hypothesized to alter the dynamic regulation of the autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immune systems. This study examined the effects of antecedent chronic life stress on psychological and physiological responsivity after acute challenge with a psychological stressor. METHOD: Using a within-subject mixed design, male volunteers with (N = 12) and without chronic life stress (N = 11) were administered a 12-minute laboratory s…
Plasma Catecholamine and Lymphocyte beta2 -adrenergic Receptor Alterations in Elderly Alzheimer Caregivers under Stress
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of chronic stress on beta-adrenergic physiology in elderly spousal caregivers to Alzheimer patients. METHODS: Thirty-seven elderly spousal caregivers and matched noncaregiver controls (mean age 73 years, SD = 6) were studied. Life stress categorization (presence of marked threat) covering the previous 6 months was determined using a semistructured interview based on the Psychiatric…
Screening for Depression in the Older Adult: Criterion Validity of the 10-Item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D)
BACKGROUND: The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) has been widely used in studies of late-life depression. While the CES-D is convenient to use in most settings, it can present problems for elderly respondents who may find the response format confusing, the questions emotionally stressful, and the time to complete burdensome. A briefer 10-item version has been proposed, but there are few data on its properties as a scree…
Differential Effects of Exercise, Mental Stress and Beta-Agonist Infusion on TNF-Alpha and Il-6 Production in Humans
Reduction of Natural Killer Cytotoxic Activity in Major Depression: Interaction Between Depression and Cigarette Smoking
OBJECTIVE: Epidemiological data suggest that the presence of a depressed mood combined with cigarette smoking increases the risk of cancer at sites associated with smoking and at sites not associated with smoking. This study tested the hypothesis that major depression and smoking together contribute to a decline of natural killer cell (NK) activity, an immune parameter thought to be important in immune surveillance. METHODS: A sample of 245 men w…
Interleukin-6 and Tumor Necrosis Factor-α Production After Acute Psychological Stress, Exercise, and Infused Isoproterenol: Differential Effects and Pathways
OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to assess the effects of three different methods of acute activation of the sympathetic nervous system on lipopolysaccharide-induced in vitro production of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha). METHODS: Thirty-two healthy volunteers performed speech and exercise tasks and underwent a 30-minute infusion of isoproterenol. RESULTS: As expected, acute activation of the sympathetic nervou…
Health Consequences of Alzheimer’s Caregiving Transitions: Effects of Placement and Bereavement
OBJECTIVE: To determine the extent to which the chronic stress of Alzheimer's disease caregiving may be alleviated by placement or death of the Alzheimer's disease patient, we prospectively compared groups of caregivers (CG) who continued to care for their Alzheimer's disease spouse at home, CG who placed their spouses, and CG whose spouses died with similarly aged noncaregiving comparison subjects (control subjects). METHODS: A sample of 119 CG …
Acute Psychological Stress: Effects on Chemotaxis and Cellular Adhesion Molecule Expression
OBJECTIVE: Activation of a psychological stress response increases autonomic activity and enhances immune function by inducing a significant increase in numbers of leukocytes at sites of inflammation. Chemotaxis and cellular adhesion are thought to mediate leukocyte trafficking. In this study, we examine the effects of an acute psychological stress on chemotactic responses of PBMCs and on CAM expression in relation to measures of sympathetic acti…
Effects of a Behavioral Intervention, Tai Chi Chih, on Varicella-Zoster Virus Specific Immunity and Health Functioning in Older Adults
OBJECTIVE: Both the incidence and severity of herpes zoster (shingles) increase markedly with increasing age in association with a decline in varicella-zoster virus (VZV) specific cell-mediated immunity (CMI). This study examined whether a behavioral intervention, Tai Chi Chih (TCC), affects VZV specific immunity and health functioning in older adults who, on average, show impairments of health status and are at risk for shingles. METHODS: Thirty…
Disordered Sleep, Nocturnal Cytokines, and Immunity in Alcoholics
OBJECTIVE: Alcoholics who are at risk for infectious disease show profound disturbances of sleep along with decrements of cellular immunity. This study examined the relationships between sleep, nocturnal expression of immunoregulatory cytokines, and natural killer (NK) cell activity in alcoholic patients as compared with control subjects. METHODS: Alcoholic patients (N = 24) and comparison control subjects (N = 23) underwent all-night polysomnogr…
Inflammatory Markers and Sleep Disturbance in Major Depression
Objective: This study was conducted to determine whether immune activation occurs in major depression, and to evaluate the associations between disordered sleep and markers of inflammation in patients with major depressive disorder. Methods: All-night polysomnography was obtained in patients with acute Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition major depressive disorder (n = 22) and age-, gender-, and body weight-matched c…
Association Between Nocturnal Vagal Tone and Sleep Depth, Sleep Quality, and Fatigue in Alcohol Dependence
Background: This study examined whether nocturnal vagal tone as indexed by the high-frequency (HF) power component of heart rate variability is related to measures of sleep depth and daytime perceptions of sleep quality, sleepiness, and fatigue in alcohol dependence. Methods: Abstinent alcohol-dependent patients (n = 14) and comparison control subjects (n = 14) underwent all-night polysomnography along with assessment of heart rate variability du…
Single-factor scoring validation for the Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index (HAQ-DI) in patients with systemic sclerosis and comparison with early rheumatoid arthritis patients
Cardiac-related Hospitalization and/or Death Associated With Immune Dysregulation and Symptoms of Depression in Heart Failure Patients
OBJECTIVE: Congestive heart failure (CHF) patients with depressive symptoms have a greater risk of morbidity and mortality. Immune activity such as inflammation is increasingly implicated as underlying this relationship. However, it is unknown whether there is a broader spectrum of immune dysregulation beyond inflammatory activity. This study examined in CHF patients the relationship of depressive symptoms with cellular immune activity measured b…
A Preliminary Study of Daily Interpersonal Stress and C-Reactive Protein Levels Among Adolescents From Latin American and European Backgrounds
OBJECTIVE: To examine the association between the experience of daily interpersonal stress and levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), an inflammatory marker that is a key indicator of cardiovascular risk, during the teenage years. METHODS: A total of 69 adolescents (Mage= 17.78 years) completed daily diary checklists each night for 14 days in which they reported their experience of negative interpersonal interactions in the domains of family, peers,…
Antagonistic pleiotropy at the human IL6 promoter confers genetic resilience to the pro-inflammatory effects of adverse social conditions in adolescence
The authors tested the evolutionary genetic hypothesis that the functional form of an asymmetrically risky Gene × Environment interaction will differ as a function of age-related antagonistic pleiotropy (i.e., show opposite effects in young vs. old individuals). Previous studies have identified a polymorphism in the human IL6 promoter (rs1800795; IL6-74 G/C) that interacts with adverse socioenvironmental conditions to promote chronic inflammation…
Robert Ader: Psychologist, Past President of the American Psychosomatic Society, and Pioneer in Psychoneuroimmunology Research
Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience, Los Angeles, CA [email protected]
Persistent Depressive Symptoms and Pain after Cardiac Surgery
OBJECTIVE: Our objectives were to describe trajectories of depressive symptoms and pain at hospital discharge and 6 weeks later and to examine the relationship of persistent depressive symptoms to pain. METHODS: Before and 6 weeks after hospital discharge, 251 patients undergoing cardiac surgery (mean [SD] age = 67.3 [9.5] years; 73% male) completed the Beck Depression Inventory and the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI). Patients were categorized into t…
From stress to inflammation and major depressive disorder: A social signal transduction theory of depression
Major life stressors, especially those involving interpersonal stress and social rejection, are among the strongest proximal risk factors for depression. In this review, we propose a biologically plausible, multilevel theory that describes neural, physiologic, molecular, and genomic mechanisms that link experiences of social-environmental stress with internal biological processes that drive depression pathogenesis. Central to this social signal t…
Why Sleep Is Important for Health: A Psychoneuroimmunology Perspective
Sleep has a critical role in promoting health. Research over the past decade has documented that sleep disturbance has a powerful influence on the risk of infectious disease, the occurrence and progression of several major medical illnesses including cardiovascular disease and cancer, and the incidence of depression. Increasingly, the field has focused on identifying the biological mechanisms underlying these effects. This review highlights the i…
Socioeconomic Status, Daily Affective and Social Experiences, and Inflammation During Adolescence
OBJECTIVE: To assess the relation between socioeconomic status (SES) and inflammation during adolescence and determine whether daily affective and social experiences across a 15-day period mediate this relation. METHODS: Adolescents (n = 316) completed daily diary reports of positive affect, negative affect, and negative social interactions for 15 days and provided whole blood spot samples for the assessment of C-reactive protein (CRP). Parents p…
Is Inflammation a Link Between Self-Reported Health and Infectious Disease Risk
Medicine (31 works) · Psychology (29 works) · Internal Medicine (24 works) · Internal Medicine (23 works) · Psychiatry (20 works) · Stress Responses and Cortisol (13 works) · Sleep and related disorders (11 works) · Sleep (system call) (10 works) · Tryptophan and brain disorders (10 works) · Clinical Psychology (9 works)