Alternatively, cognitive stress theory would predict that support from family and friends, though unlikely to reduce yearning, might ameliorate general grief symptoms and depression. The results demonstrated that yearning was the only grief symptom associated with marital quality and was not associated with social support, consistent with predictions from attachment theory. Thus, although supportive others reduce depression and other Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical general symptoms,

they can not alleviate the loss of an attachment figure. Physiological regulation We can add to the original attachment theory (ie, that attachment confers capacity for psychological regulation) that it also may confer physiological regulation. Repeated social contact with a particular person results in a conditioned Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical response whereby the attachment figure is reliably associated with a state of psychological security and physiological calm.6 Much of the original work on physiological coregulation came from a series of studies by Myron Hofer.7 These studies were designed to SIRT1 activity isolate different systems that became dysregulated when a rat pup was separated from its mother. For example, warmth and milk are two very different aspects of the loss. Hofer theorized that the diverse responses to loss could be understood in terms of the removal of “interpersonal regulators” Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical which were physiological. Fie inferred that human bereavement also included

the loss of physiological Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical regulators, rather than only psychological stress. Sbarra and Hazan5 theorized that the response to separation (or bereavement) in fact has two unrelated (though usually co-occurring) physiological components. First, there is a general stress response (termed organized by Sbarra and Hazan). Second, there is an attachment-specific stress response (termed disorganized by Sbarra and Hazan) driven by the loss of the rewarding aspects of attachment. First, bereavement provokes a general stress response – the physiological stress

response that psychologists refer to as the “fight-or-flight” response, and includes the cardiovascular system (eg, heart rate, catecholamines) and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical (eg, corticotrophin-releasing hormone (CRH), Cortisol). Bereavement research has demonstrated increases in catecholamines and Cortisol in the early stages of bereavement.8-11 However, this general physiological stress only response to bereavement is not distinct from the response to other stressful life events (eg, stress of job loss, stress associated with man-made disasters). In addition to the general stress response, there is an attachment-specific stress response driven by the loss of the rewarding aspects of attachment.12-14 Physiological systems respond to the removal of the conditioned pleasure and soothing associated with the attachment figure. Sbarra and Hazan5 use the term “coregulation” to describe the physiological aspect of the feelings of security that an attachment figure provides.