Salivary chromogranin A as a measure of stress response to noise

Abstract

Effects of noise on the secretion of salivary chromogranin A (CgA), which is considered to be a substitute measure of catecholamines, were investigated in a laboratory experiment. This study included 20 male subjects with normal hearing; their ages ranged from 21 to 24 years. Prior to the experiment, the subjects were asked to answer a questionnaire containing the 28-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) and Weinstein's noise sensitivity scale. White noise at 90 dB was presented to the subjects for 15 min with 15-minute-rest periods before and after noise exposure. It was shown that salivary CgA levels increased significantly during noise exposure and decreased immediately after it (Friedman's test, p = 0.001, two tailed). This result suggests that salivary CgA can be used to measure the stress response to noise. Furthermore, individual differences in the change in salivary CgA levels were discussed in relation to the subjective responses of the participants to the questionnaire. Some subjects showed prolonged elevation in the salivary CgA levels and the others showed immediate recovery or no effects. These individual differences correlated with the score on the somatic symptoms in GHQ-28; this implies that the score on the somatic symptoms in GHQ-28 could be a measure of physiological sensitivity to noise.

Measurement of chromogranin A in porcine saliva: validation of a time-resolved immunofluorometric assay and evaluation of its application as a marker of acute stress

“…For this reason, the salivary catecholamine concentrations are poor indexes of acute changes in SAM activity (Takai et al, 2004). In addition, the measurement of salivary catecholamines is rather difficult (usually using a high-performance liquid chromatography procedure with electrochemical detection or a radioenzymatic method) because of its low concentration and rapid degradation (Miyakawa et al, 2006). It has been reported that salivary CgA could be a useful biochemical marker of stress in human medicine (Lee et al, 2006) and it may be considered as a possible alternative for the evaluation of SAM activity (Dimsdale et al, 1992) for the measurements of catecholamines in saliva.…”

“…An individual variability in responses of salivary stress markers, cortisol and CgA, between animals was observed. This variability may be explained by the differences in sensitivity of each individual animal against the stress (Fazio and Ferlazzo, 2003), and it is also described in humans (Miyakawa et al, 2006). Salivary CgA is considered as a reliable marker of SAM activation in humans (Gallina et al, 2011), whereas salivary cortisol is considered as a good indicator of the HPA axis response to stressors in pigs (Merlot et al, 2011).…”

“…In human medicine, there are numerous articles based on the increase of salivary CgA in response to different stressors, such as noise (Miyakawa et al, 2006), social or emotional stress (Toda et al, 2007), psychosomatic stress (Lee et al, 2006) or even in psychological stressful situations (Rai and Kaur, 2011). In contrast, in veterinary medicine, there is only one study on salivary CgA, which was evaluated as a marker of social isolation stress in cows (Ninomiya and Sato, 2011).…”

Effects of Olfactory Stimulation from the Fragrance of the Japanese Citrus Fruit Yuzu (Citrus junos Sieb. ex Tanaka) on Mood States and Salivary Chromogranin A as an Endocrinologic Stress Marker

“…12,16,17 Basal CgA concentration differs from individual to individual, and the values were not normally distributed as in previous studies. 17,29 Referring to earlier investigations, 18,35,36 therefore, the values for CgA concentration before the aroma inhalation were standardized to 100%. The rate of change after the inhalation was compared between aroma and control trials.…”

Psychological and Salivary Cortisol Responses to an Improvised Speech Without an Audience: Comparison to a Rest Condition

“…Although salivary cortisol is one useful index that reflects the activation of the HPA system, there are some other salivary indices that reflect activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Several studies have shown increased chromogranin A (Miyakawa et al, 2006;Takatsuji et al, 2008), and salivary alpha-amylase (Kawada, Fukusaki, Ohtani, & Kobayashi, 2009;Wagner et al, 2010) under psychological stress. It is reported that the response of salivary amylase, which is considered to reflect the activation of the sympathetic nervous system, is faster and larger than that of salivary cortisol (Takai et al, 2004); thus indices like salivary amylase might conceivably be changed by an improvised speech without an audience.…”