The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health provided the grant for researchers to analyze how stress affects the immune system and inflammatory atherosclerosis, according to a July 31 news release from Mount Sinai.
The research program aims to find approaches to manage patient cardiovascular risks, as many existing strategies fail to take into account the ways psychological stress can be a critical risk factor for cardiovascular disease, according to the release.
Studies from the initial grant revealed a significant influence that stress perception mechanisms have on atherosclerosis development and regression, overall emphasizing the importance of the neuro-immune-arterial pathway. Moving forward, the research team — which also includes researchers from Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital, New York City-based New York University and Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands — plans on using the grant renewal to expand the knowledge of psychosocial stress-aggravated atherosclerotic disease.
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