[FOR EMBARGOED RELEASE Wednesday, April 7]
Contact: Peter Hall, 519.888.4567 x38110

Social Neuroscience in Health Behavior and Health Communication.

SEATTLE, WA - Chronic health conditions and the behaviors that give rise to them have traditionally been studied from a purely psychological or purely biological perspective. However, the emergence of a new field of interdisciplinary research called “social neuroscience” promises to change this. A series of studies to be presented at the Society for Behavioral Medicine’s Annual Meeting in Seattle examine the ways in which the brain interacts with information from the social environment to produce behaviors and responses that have implications for a variety of chronic health conditions that affect North American adults.

Peter Hall, PhD, C.Psych is an associate professor in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo, and is the organizer of the symposium. He and his colleagues Lise Solberg Nes, PhD of the University of Kentucky, Hannah Faye Chua, PhD of the University of Michigan, and Joseph Cappella, PhD of the University of Pennsylvania will present data showing that brain and behavior are tightly connected in surprising ways that have important health implications in everyday life. The symposium will be held on Thursday, April 8th.

Dr. Hall will present a study showing that individual differences in cognitive abilities associated with operation of the frontal lobes of the brain are predictive of survival time among those living with a chronic illness. These cognitive functions – called “executive functions” because of their ability to control thinking, emotion and behavior – affect how easily individuals can translate intentions to engage in healthy behaviors (e.g., exercising regularly, making healthy dietary choices) in to actual behavior. His past research has shown that those with stronger executive functions tend to do much better at this than others. In the present study Hall and colleagues demonstrate that stronger executive functions also predict longer survival time after the onset of chronic illnesses that carry significant behavior change requirements (e.g., diabetes, heart disease). According to Dr. Hall, “We think of executive functions as a kind of self-regulatory resource that allows individuals to pursue health related goals in everyday life; kind of a ‘wind-at-the-back’ phenomenon that facilitates translating will into action, with respect to a variety of behaviors that have implications for both the occurrence of chronic illness and survival time after onset.”

Dr. Lise Solberg Nes will describe the role of self-regulatory resources in the context of rehabilitation of for those suffering from chronic pain; she presents data supporting the idea that chronic pain patients may suffer from chronic self-regulatory fatigue, again implicating areas of the brain involved in executive processes.

A study by Dr. Hannah Faye Chua and her colleagues used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to examine brain changes among smokers in response to a variety of messages that differed in the level of personal relevance; they found that areas of the brain that respond to processing of information about the self were more strongly activated when the messages were personalized than not.

Finally, Dr. Joseph Cappella will present findings from a body of research that attests to the importance of using sophisticated “covert” measures of attentional engagement when examining the effectiveness of health communications, particularly those aimed at reducing smoking uptake and promoting quitting behavior. Studies of anti-smoking PSAs have shown: (1) that ads that have a format that is too sensational may interfere with attention to and retention of information in the ad; (2) that anti-smoking ads with smoking scenes can increase smoker’s urge to smoke as well as their physiological reactions; and (3) smokers’ visual attention to ads with smoking scenes is disproportionately to the smoking scenes.

“Together these studies support the integration of social sciences and the neurosciences when addressing some of the challenges associated with preventing and managing chronic health conditions,” says Hall. “It is likely that the future of health promotion and health communication will increasingly depend on a deeper understanding of the complex ways in which brain-based functions, thinking processes and the social environment interface with each other.”

Dr. Hall is supported by funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Dr. Chua is supported by the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Dr. Cappella is supported by funding from the National Cancer Institute.

The Society of Behavioral Medicine is a multidisciplinary organization of clinicians, educators and scientists dedicated to promoting the study of the interactions of behavior with biology and the environment and the application of that knowledge to improve the health and well being of individuals, families, communities and populations.
www.sbm.org

Editor’s notes:
This study was presented during the 2010 Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions of the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM) from April 7-10 in Seattle, Washington. However, it does not necessarily reflect the policies or the opinion of the SBM.

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