Peggy Zoccola, Ph.D.

Peggy Zoccola博士擅长发现压力和疾病之间关系的基本机制。 她目前的研究重点是了解思想和情绪如何延长身体的压力反应，以及这种持续激活的潜在健康后果。 

Zoccola专注于这一研究主题，因为她认为压力是生活中不可避免的一部分。

“Although a large body of evidence links the experience of stress to negative health outcomes, there is a great deal of variability in how individuals respond to stressful life events,” she says. 

Zoccola addresses a series of theoretical questions in her research in order to distinguish how the differences between individuals and the conditions of stressful situations impact health. 

These include: 

• Do individuals who ruminate, or mentally rehearse past stressors, have greater increases in stress hormones (cortisol) or inflammation, in response to a stressful event? 
• Do these cortisol levels and inflammatory markers remain elevated after the stressor is over? 
• Does rumination on past stressors negatively impact sleep? Are some individuals at greater risk for rumination? 
• Are certain types of stressors more likely to elicit ruminative thought?  

Zoccola and her team are the first to study acute immune effects of stress, rumination, and distraction in an experimental way. Zoccola’s program of research includes an interdisciplinary focus, varied research methods ranging from laboratory experiments to electronic daily diaries, sophisticated assessments across physiological and motor systems, such as noninvasive continuous blood pressure and electrocardiography, and advanced statistical analyses.  

Many researchers in the past have studied the correlational relationship between rumination and hormone and immune changes in the body, but few have examined the casual relationship with experimental designs, Zoccola says.