Contributions to Science

During Annelise’s graduate school career, her scientific findings included:

• Support for the Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression, including the unique relevance and potency of conflict-related social stress to inflammation-associated depression risk

• Marriage’s immunological effect may be most evident in mid-to-late life

• People who experience frequent conflict and hostility may be most psychologically sensitive to inflammation’s effects

• The combination of gut leakiness and elevated inflammation may fuel depressive symptoms one to years later

• Low marital satisfaction can foreshadow depressive symptom increases, which is itself associated with declines in gut microbiota richness and diversity

• A 20-minute marital conflict can promote heightened inflammation even five hours later

• Unlike steeper inflammatory rises, mild inflammatory rises may not impact feelings of social connection nor social behavior (e.g., avoidance)

• Four months of omega-3 supplementation may slow biological aging by reducing the physiological toll of acute social stress

• Four months of omega-3 supplementation may help to prevent depressive symptom increases, especially among the socially-stressed

• A single high-saturated fat meal (60% kcal from fat) can impair attention hours later

• Black breast cancer survivors may have more persistently elevated psychological distress during survivorship than White cancer survivors

• A mood disorder history prior to cancer treatment may set the stage for faster cardiopulmonary aging in survivorship

• Among breast cancer survivors, gut leakiness and inflammation rise as relationship satisfaction declines

• Breast cancer survivors who take proton pump inhibitors, indicating gastrointestinal upset, may be at greater risk for subjective cognitive problems during survivorship