Research findings by Professor Takeshi Hashimoto and others have been published online in Brain, Behavior, & Immunity – Health

A research paper written by Ms. Yoshino Murakami (RARA Student Fellow), a third-year doctoral student of the Graduate School of Sport and Health Science, in collaboration with Professor Takeshi Hashimoto (RARA Associate Fellow) and Professor Steve Cole of the University of California (UCLA) School of Medicine, has been published online ahead of its forthcoming publication in the academic journal Brain, Behavior, & Immunity – Health.

In Western countries, the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) has hitherto been suggested to potentially contribute to the suppression of the Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity (CTRA), which is closely associated with social isolation, bereavement, loneliness, and psychological stress. However, detailed analyses suggest that the PNS-CTRA relationship may vary across ethnic groups. In actuality, both PNS and CTRA are psychophysiological elements that are also mutually associated with psychological attributes that vary across different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. To date, nevertheless, the PNS-CTRA relationship has not been examined in East Asian cultures, including Japan.

This study investigates the PNS-CTRA relationship in healthy young adults in Japan, a country in East Asian region where cultural and value systems distinct from those of the Western world are embedded.

The outcome of the study reveals that higher heart rate variability (HRV), which reflects PNS, is associated with lower CTRA, consistent with previous studies (the analysis made takes age, sex, BMI, and alcohol and smoking habits into account). These findings suggest that the PNS-CTRA relationship in maintaining psychological and physiological homeostasis is quite uniform across cultures with different values.

Paper title: Parasympathetic nervous activity and CTRA gene expression among healthy young adults in Japan
Authors: Yoshino Murakami, Takeshi Hashimoto, Steve Cole
Publication journal: Brain, Behavior, & Immunity – Health
Publication date (online): June 19, 2025 (local time)
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbih.2025.101040