Salivary neural growth factor linked to stress and stress resilience

[whitecoast]

I recently came across an interesting article about neural growth factor and the role it plays in stress and resilience.

Here is the quote from the neuroscience fb group I found it on:

The secret to ‪#‎stress‬ and ‪#‎resilience‬ may be hidden in your spit. Researchers at the University of Oregon and Arizona State University have linked levels of salivary neuron growth factor (sNGF) to both stress and a person's ability to respond positively to that stressor. In new research published in Psychosomatic Medicine, the researchers found that having an argument with a romantic partner led to an increase in sNGF levels that corresponded with a rise in the body's fight or flight response. Interestingly, people with the largest increase in sNGF also had the lowest levels of negative emotions from the argument. The researchers believe that sNGF levels may help explain why some people are resilient after stressful events while others struggle.

Read more: http://bit.ly/1aL1uCd
Journal article: Salivary Nerve Growth Factor Reactivity to Acute Psychosocial Stress: A New Frontier for Stress Research. Psychosomatic Medicine, 2013. doi: 10.1097/PSY.0b013e3182a85ffd

Here's the article originally referenced, providing more details:
https://asunews.asu.edu/20131001-spit-study

What I like about this information is that it suggests that if I were to find more clues about how to increase the responsiveness of sNGF to events, it could increase the robustness of the overall mental response. :)

 

[Muxel]

What I like about this information is that it suggests that if I were to find more clues about how to increase the responsiveness of sNGF to events, it could increase the robustness of the overall mental response. :)

I'd want to know what the high-sNGF-increase people were doing during these conflicts with their romantic partners. Maybe their stress levels peaked higher because they were making the effort to stay rational and not fall back on some primitive psychological defense mechanism, and this led to better post-conflict recovery. Or they could have been doing the opposite.