Brain Regions Link Asthma and Emotions

NEW YORK — Psychological stress has been shown to have an effect on asthma flare-ups, and now the brain regions that appear to be responsible for this interaction have been identified, according to US researchers.

As reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Richard J. Davidson, from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and colleagues used functional MRI — that is, MRI scans that show activity as well as anatomical structures — to determine the brain regions linking emotions with asthma flare-ups.

In the study, six patients with mild asthma were exposed to ragweed or dust-mite extracts. The subjects were shown three different categories of words: asthma-related (e.g., "wheeze"), non-asthma negative ("loneliness") or neutral ("curtains").

Two brain regions, the anterior cingulate cortex and insula, showed increased activity when the asthma-related words were heard compared with the other types. Moreover, this enhanced activity was specifically linked to physiologic signals from the ragweed and dust-mite extracts.

"In individuals with asthma and other stress-related conditions, these brain regions may be hyperresponsive to disease-specific emotional and … physiologic signals," which may contribute to problems that worsen the asthma, such as inflammation, the researchers conclude.

SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 29th online edition, 2005.