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Inflammatory Proteins are Highly Variable During a Natural Stressor: A Call for Intensive Longitudinal Blood
Daniel P Moriarity1, Andrea C M Miller1, Durga D Thota2
1Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, USA.
Brain, Behavior, and Immunity
|July 28, 2026
Summary
High-frequency immune assessments are crucial for understanding stress and inflammation dynamics. Intensive blood sampling every 3 days revealed low reliability for most inflammatory proteins, highlighting the need for dynamic measurement in research on stress-related disorders.
Area of Science:
- Psychoneuroimmunology
- Biomarker Discovery
Background:
- Stress and inflammation are dynamic processes implicated in heart disease and depression.
- Standard longitudinal studies have lengthy measurement lags, hindering the capture of rapid biological changes.
- Understanding the interplay between stress and inflammatory markers requires high-frequency assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the utility of intensive longitudinal collection of inflammatory proteins.
- To assess the reliability of measuring key immune markers with frequent sampling.
- To determine optimal time lags for capturing dynamic changes in inflammatory proteins.
Main Methods:
- Collected blood microsamples every 3 days over 22 days from 86 college students.
- Analyzed samples for 10 inflammatory proteins including C-reactive protein (CRP), TNF-α, and various interleukins (ILs).
- Quantified reliability using average 3-day correlations and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs).
Main Results:
- Average 3-day correlations varied widely (r=.09-.86) across proteins.
- ICCs indicated low reliability for most proteins, with less than 6% stable between-person differences, except for CRP.
- C-reactive protein (CRP) demonstrated fair reliability, while other markers showed minimal stable individual differences.
Conclusions:
- High-frequency immune assessments are necessary to capture the natural variability of inflammatory proteins.
- Current measurement frequencies in longitudinal studies may be insufficient to detect dynamic changes.
- Future research should employ intensive longitudinal designs to accurately study stress-inflammatory pathways.
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