# Psychological and inflammatory biobehavioral mechanisms underlying the association between bereavement and cardiovascular disease

> **NIH NIH F31** · RICE UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $45,520

## Abstract

Project Summary
The loss of a spouse is one of most stressful experiences one can encounter. In the face of such loss, people are
physiologically and emotionally dysregulated. As a result, bereaved individuals are at increased risk of
cardiovascular disease (CVD), morbidity, and mortality. CVD accounts for an astounding 20-53% of deaths
following loss of a spouse. Highly stressed individuals, such as bereaved spouses, exhibit heightened
inflammatory responses in comparison to those who are less stressed. Importantly, inflammation is a predictor
of all stages of CVD from initial lesion to end-stage thrombotic complications. Therefore, as bereaved
individuals are highly stressed and at increased risk of CVD, inflammation may be a key mechanism underlying
this CVD risk. Further, bereavement-related stress is often manifested in emotional and physical reactions such
as despair, symptoms of depression, excessive grief rumination, insomnia, and decreased physical activity. In
bereavement, the ability to successfully regulate emotion is a vital skill for healthy coping, predictive of health
outcomes, and may represent a key psychological mechanism accounting for varying degrees of resilience.
Psychological distancing is one promising adaptive emotion regulation strategy in which an individual
appraises a negative situation by taking a step back, distancing oneself, and coolly, objectively evaluates what is
happening. The objective of the present work is to investigate if psychological distancing, implemented
implicitly via natural language use (i.e., linguistic distancing (LD)), is related to proinflammatory cytokine
biomarkers of CVD risk and bereavement-related health indicators. 160 participants who experienced the loss
of their spouse within the last two months will complete questionnaires that index bereavement-related health
indices (i.e., risk for mortality, general health, symptoms of depression, perceived stress, grief rumination,
sleep quality, and physical activity), and undergo a blood draw to assess proinflammatory cytokine biomarkers
of CVD risk. Participants will be asked to discuss their relationship with the deceased spouse for six minutes
while being recorded. To assess LD, lexical assays of each participant's oral transcripts will index the extent of
his or her spontaneous psychological distancing using a well-established, standardized LD metric. Greater LD
scores indicate greater psychological distancing and have been associated with more adaptive emotion
regulation and health indices. Primary aims include assessing (1) if LD is negatively associated with CVD-
related proinflammatory cytokine responses, (2) if LD is negatively related to deleterious bereavement-related
health indicators, and (3) as an exploratory aim, examining and characterizing functional interrelationships
among LD, proinflammatory cytokine responses, and bereavement-related health indices. This work may
explain novel dependencies among language, emotion, and CVD ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9921206
- **Project number:** 5F31HL147394-02
- **Recipient organization:** RICE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Anoushka D. Shahane
- **Activity code:** F31 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $45,520
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-05-17 → 2022-05-16

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9921206

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9921206, Psychological and inflammatory biobehavioral mechanisms underlying the association between bereavement and cardiovascular disease (5F31HL147394-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-11 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9921206. Licensed CC0.

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