Biobehavioral Mechanisms of Emotion, Stress and Health Study Section – MESH

Topics

• Examination of individual, situational, environmental, or physiological factors that affect stress reactivity, coping and resilience
• The measurement and perception of stress and related interactions with subjective emotional states, emotional expression, or the regulation and measurement of emotion and mood
• Mechanistic and physiological consequences of stress, such as changes in biological aging, cognitive disruptions, or disorders of aging
• Relationships between affect, emotion, and/or psychological stress with normative or disordered physical and mental health across the lifespan, in human and animal models
• Clinical studies of sleep and circadian rhythm focusing on behavioral outputs and the interactions of normal or disordered sleep and circadian rhythms with physical and mental health and illness in humans
• The effects of stress reduction interventions on physical and mental health and the use of complementary or alternative approaches, including tai chi, yoga, acupuncture and mindfulness, when stress-responsive biological systems are interrogated, and stress mechanisms are postulated as mediators.
• Studies examining the biological consequences of systemic stress such as race-based discrimination.

Shared Interests and Overlaps

Neurological, Mental and Behavioral Health (NMBH): There are shared interests in behavioral and psychiatric conditions in both study sections. Applications that emphasize the neurological and biological foundations underlying these conditions in both experimental animal models and humans are reviewed in MESH. Applications that emphasize epidemiological study designs to examine determinants, predictors, and biomarkers associated with behavioral, psychiatric and substance use disorders exclusively in human subpopulations are reviewed in NMBH.

Biobehavioral Medicine and Health Outcomes (BMHO): There are shared interests in stress and pain. Applications that emphasize behavioral, and social factors affecting stress and responses to interventions to reduce pain are reviewed in BMHO. Applications that emphasize basic biological responses to stress and pain and the interplay between stress/emotion and pain are reviewed in MESH.

Lifestyle Change and Behavioral Health (LCBH): There are shared interests in sleep studies and their effects on health promotion. Applications that emphasize sleep that contributes to health promotion and disease prevention are reviewed in LCBH. Applications that emphasize how sleep interacts primarily with physical and mental health are reviewed in MESH.

Lifestyle and Health Behaviors (LHB): There are shared interests in sleep. Applications that focus on the interactions of sleep as an exposure related to physical and mental illness and health from a biological and mechanistic perspective, mostly using laboratory-based studies, are reviewed in MESH. Applications that use a population-based approach to studying sleep as an exposure that affects health outcomes or sleep as a health outcome in human subpopulations from a more behavioral perspective are reviewed in LHB.

Behavioral Neuroendocrinology, Neuroimmunology, Rhythms, and Sleep (BNRS): animal stress models that focus predominantly on the neuroendocrine or neuroimmune mechanisms of stress or animal models of circadian rhythms and sleep, and basic mechanisms of human circadian and sleep regulation, are reviewed in BNRS. Applications involving sleep or circadian rhythms and their disorders in humans and their relation to physical or mental health are reviewed in MESH.

Psychosocial Development, Risk and Prevention [PDRP]: applications focused on risk and protective factors and interventions related to socioemotional development and emotional regulation strategies are reviewed in PDRP. Applications that focus on prenatal-origin, childhood, or familial stress in the context of risk, child development, or child emotion regulation can be reviewed in MESH if stress-responsive biological systems are invoked as mechanisms or outcome measures.

Social Psychology and Interpersonal Processes [SPIP]: applications that focus on social sources of stress and social factors that influence emotion and self-regulation are reviewed in SPIP; MESH emphasizes the biological and mechanistic aspects of emotion regulation and the response to stress.

Social and Environmental Determinants of Health (SEDH): There are shared interests in stress exposures. Applications that take a mostly laboratory-based approach to understanding the biological mechanisms underlying the association between stress and biological outcomes in humans are reviewed in MESH. Applications that emphasize stress as a social determinant of health and its association with biological health outcomes in human subpopulations are reviewed in SEDH.

There are shared interests in adult psychopathology with Adult Lifespan Psychopathology (ALP). Applications that emphasize stress-responsive biological systems are involved as mechanisms or outcome measures are reviewed in MESH. Applications that emphasize sleep or circadian rhythms and their disorders in humans and their relation to physical or mental health are also reviewed in MESH. Applications that emphasize adult psychopathology that do not involve stress mechanisms or outcomes are reviewed in ALP. 

There are shared interests in the areas of neuropsychiatric and sleep disorders with Neural Basis of Psychopathology, Addictions, and Sleep Disorders (NPAS). Applications that emphasize the interactions of psychological stress and emotion states or involving sleep or circadian rhythms are reviewed in MESH. Applications that emphasize more structural and mechanistic aspects and the etiology, neural mechanisms, diagnosis of neuropsychiatric disorders and treatment of sleep disorders in humans are reviewed in NPAS. 

There are shared interests in child psychopathology with Child Psychopathology and Developmental Disabilities (CPDD). Applications that emphasize prenatal-origin or childhood stress in the context of child psychopathology are reviewed in MESH if stress-responsive biological systems are involved as mechanisms or outcome measures. Applications that emphasize examining sleep and circadian rhythms and their disorders in childhood and adolescence are reviewed in MESH. Applications that emphasize examining aspects of sleep in relation to the diagnosis, etiology, comorbidity, and developmental course of child neurodevelopmental disorders or child/adolescent psychopathology are reviewed in CPDD (i.e., examination of sleep in relation to depressive symptoms in adolescents).