Behavioral Medicine 

The Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research (IBMR) is the unit in which Ohio State’s multidisciplinary program in psychoneuroimmunology is housed. Led by Ronald Glaser, PhD, the IBMR was established to stimulate and expand interdisciplinary collaboration through experiments involving social and behavioral influences, stress hormones and the immune response on the health of human subjects and animal models.

Psychoneuroimmunology is an interdisciplinary program involving four colleges (Medicine; Public Health; Dentistry; and Social and Behavioral Sciences), including six academic departments (Molecular Virology, Immunology & Medical Genetics; Psychology; Psychiatry; Internal Medicine; Oral Biology; and Biostatistics) and two other Health Sciences centers (the Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute and the Comprehensive Cancer Center). This rapidly developing field examines interactions among the nervous, endocrine and immune systems, as well as implications of these connections that will translate to healthcare practices.

Behavioral Medicine Support Program highlights of 2006:

• The laboratory of Virginia Sanders, PhD, was the first to report on how CD86 (B7-2), a molecule that provides a costimulatory signal necessary for T-cell activation and survival, signals intracellularly.
• Daniel Ankeny, PhD, Virginia Sanders, PhD, Phillip Popovich, PhD, and co-workers showed that experimental spinal cord injury elicits chronic activation of a B celldependent autoimmune response. In this novel study, high levels of anti-DNA antibodies were detected in spinal cordinjured rats with a pattern that is similar to that seen in systemic lupus erythematosus.
• Studies were published by Eric Yang, PhD, Clay Marsh, MD, Ronald Glaser, PhD, and colleagues that show how stress may affect tumor progression independent of the immune response to a tumor.
• The laboratory team of Ronald Glaser, PhD, explored the role that psychological stress plays in modulating the expression of latent Epstein-Barr virus, a human tumor virus.
• Scientists in this program are addressing the interplay between psychological factors and immune function as it relates to basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of human cancer.
• They also performed studies addressing how interactions between polyunsaturated fatty acid levels and depressive symptoms were related to proinflammatory cytokine synthesis in older adults.
• A further study in progress in the IBMR addresses the immune and endocrine consequences of a yoga session. Preliminary data from that study provided the basis for a National Cancer Institute grant that will address fatigue and inflammation in breast cancer survivors and show how a yoga intervention may impact fatigue and inflammation.