Abstract
Psychological stress delays wound healing and decreases immune/inflammatory responses required for bacterial clearance. To determine if stress increases the susceptibility to wound infection, female SKH-1 mice were subjected to restraint stress (RST) beginning 3 days prior to the placement of cutaneous wounds. Viable bacteria were quantified from harvested wounds. RST delayed healing by 30% and caused a 2- to 5-log increase in opportunistic bacteria (e.g., Staphylococcus aureus) when compared to wounds from control animals (p < .05). By day 7, 85.4% of the wounds from RST mice had bacterial counts predictive of infection compared to 27.4% from control mice (p < .001). To assess the role of RST-induced glucocorticoids in bacterial clearance, mice were treated with the glucocorticoid receptor antagonist RU486. RU486 reduced opportunistic bacteria by nearly 1 log in wounds from RST mice (p < .05). Thus, stress impairs bacterial clearance during wound healing, resulting in a significant increase in the incidence of opportunistic infection.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 74-84 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Brain, Behavior, and Immunity |
Volume | 16 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2002 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Bacterial infections
- Glucocorticoids
- Mice
- RU486
- Staphylococcus aureus
- Stress
- Wound healing
- Wound infection
- β-hemolytic Streptococcus
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Immunology
- Endocrine and Autonomic Systems
- Behavioral Neuroscience