Oxidative stress: a potential link between emotional wellbeing and immune response

Emotional wellbeing is central to normal health and good living. Persistent psychological stress often disrupts emotional wellbeing and triggers onset of neuropsychiatric ailments. An integrated, multisystemic stress response involving neuroinflammatory, neuroendocrine and metabolic cascades seem to have some causative links. Of particular interest are the neuroinflammatory processes. Psychological stress has been suggested to negatively affect normal functioning of the immune system contributing to the pathophysiology of some neuropsychiatric conditions. Thus examination of the interaction between the immune system and the central nervous system is likely to reveal molecular targets critical for development of potential therapeutic and preventive measures. This review is a summarized discussion of evidence linking impact of psychological stress on the immune system, with a particular emphasis on oxidative stress mechanisms by which mental stress potentially impacts immune function leading to activation of multiple cascades resulting in subsequent manifestation of psychiatric symptomologies.