Who’s the boss: determining the control pathways of cardiovascular and cellular immune responses to acute stress

Acute stress responses are known to include increases in heart rate and blood pressure, as well as increases in the number of circulating immune cells, all of which are governed by the autonomic nervous system. This laboratory practical measures cardiovascular and circulating immune cell responses to a passive (cold pressor) and active (mental arithmetic) acute stress task in student participants. The results allow them to examine the different patterns of autonomic response they elicit (approximated by heart rate and blood pressure responses), and knowledge of these responses can then be used to infer the governing autonomic aspect of the increases in circulating immune cells from the results. This activity can be either adapted from teacher-led methods to inquiry, asking students to design the details of the acute stress tasks, or developed by asking students to design a follow-up experiment that could be used to provide direct evidence for their conclusions. Data collected provide a platform for teaching data analysis and interpretation, as well as critical thinking.