Psychosocial Stress Increases Salivary Alpha-Amylase Activity Independently from Plasma Noradrenaline Levels

Salivary alpha-amylase activity (sAA) and plasma noradrenaline (NA) concentrations are often considered to be surrogate markers of sympathetic activation in response to stress. However, despite accumulating evidence for a close association between sAA and noradrenaline and other indicators of sympat...

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Published inPloS one Vol. 10; no. 8; p. e0134561
Main Authors Petrakova, Liubov, Doering, Bettina K., Vits, Sabine, Engler, Harald, Rief, Winfried, Schedlowski, Manfred, Grigoleit, Jan-Sebastian
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Public Library of Science 06.08.2015
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects
Adult
Amylases
Anxiety
Behavior
Clinical psychology
Female
Females
Gender differences
Heart rate
Heart Rate - physiology
Humans
Hydrocortisone - analysis
Hydrocortisone - blood
Laboratories
Male
Males
Middle Aged
Nervous system
Noradrenaline
Norepinephrine
Norepinephrine - blood
Physiological aspects
Physiology
Plasma
Plasma levels
Psychological aspects
Psychological stress
Psychotherapy
Saliva - enzymology
Salivary alpha-Amylases - metabolism
Social aspects
Social interactions
Stress (Psychology)
Stress, Psychological
α-Amylase
United States
Germany
Online AccessGet full text
ISSN1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI10.1371/journal.pone.0134561

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Summary:Salivary alpha-amylase activity (sAA) and plasma noradrenaline (NA) concentrations are often considered to be surrogate markers of sympathetic activation in response to stress. However, despite accumulating evidence for a close association between sAA and noradrenaline and other indicators of sympathetic activity, reliability and generality of this relation remains unclear. We employed the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) in order to directly compare the responses in sAA and NA to psychological stress in healthy volunteers (n = 23). The TSST significantly increased sAA and NA plasma levels with no significant differences in females and males. However, when subjects were divided according to their NA responses into low versus high responders, both groups did not significantly differ in their sAA before, during or after stress exposure. These data suggest that in response to acute psychological stress both plasma NA levels and sAA reflect sympathetic activity, however seemed to increase independently from each other.
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Conceived and designed the experiments: HE WR MS. Performed the experiments: BKD SV. Analyzed the data: LP JSG. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: WR MS. Wrote the paper: LP JSG.
Competing Interests: This study was funded by sponsor Biologische Heilmittel Heel GmbH, Dr. Reckeweg-Str. 2-4, 76532 Baden-Baden, Germany (http://www.heel.com/). This study is part of a larger project aiming to evaluate the efficacy of a drug in experimental stress conditions (EudraCT number: 2012-002359-40, ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01703832). This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. The sponsor was involved in study design but not in data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors declare no competing financial interests relating to employment, consultancy, patents, products in development, marketed products or any other instance.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0134561