Abstract
Stress and psychiatric illness are often accompanied by a disturbance in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity, frequently resulting in the secretion of excessive amounts of cortisol, an immunosuppressive hormone (Carroll et al.,1976). We therefore hypothesized that psychiatric disorders such as depression, mania, and schizophrenia are associated with immune abnormalities, and that many of these abnormalities can be explained on the basis of increased secretion of cortisol. The present study was therefore conducted to characterize several aspects of immune dysfunction in psychiatric illness and to investigate the role of cortisol in such immune dysregulation.
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© 1991 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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Kronfol, Z., House, J.D. (1991). Immunity, Cortisol and Psychiatric Disorders. In: Kurstak, E. (eds) Psychiatry and Biological Factors. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-5811-4_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-5811-4_21
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-5813-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-5811-4
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