The Center builds upon the strength in research on emotion at Wisconsin. We conceptualize emotion as the key mediating variable through which social influences get transduced and impact upon the organism to influence autonomic, endocrine and immune function and thus effect health.
Emotion is instantiated in elements of brain circuitry that have now been characterized.
Project 1 will focus on later life resilience and vulnerability and will study psychosocial and biological processes in older women who have been followed through the major life transition of relocation. In addition, this study will evaluate the impact of mindfulness meditation on emotion, symptom expression, and immune and endocrine function in these patients. In a second study, this project will also collect these measures in patients from Project 2 before and after they participate in the mindfulness meditation intervention. Project 4 will study the biology and behavior of free-ranging rhesus monkeys to predict their reactivity to the naturally occurring stress of leaving their natal group. Project 5 will evaluate the efficacy of a group exercise program in older women with breast cancer and will assess emotion-related constructs as well as endocrine and immune function to examine the mechanisms by which this intervention may have salubrious effects.