Figure 1.

Acute mental stress exposure promotes inflammatory blood leucocyte uptake into tissues. (A) Visual analogue scales for stress intensity in soccer spectators either 24 h before or immediately after watching a key soccer match (n = 35 healthy individuals, aged 26.1 ± 1.3, 46% female, Wilcoxon matched-pairs test). (B, C) Gating and quantification of human blood leucocytes and subsets in soccer spectators (paired t-test). (D, E) Gating and quantification of murine blood leucocytes and subsets in non-stressed vs. stressed wild-type mice (immediately after a single 3 h episode of restraint stress, n = 12 per group, Mann–Whitney U-test). (F, G) Gating and quantification of green fluorescent protein (GFP)^high myeloid cells in various organs after adoptive transfer of GFP^high monocytes and neutrophils into non-stressed vs. stressed wild-type mice (21 h after a single 3 h episode of restraint stress, n = 11–18 per group, Student’s t-test for lung, bone marrow, and blood; Mann–Whitney U-test for skin, heart, spleen, liver, kidney, and lymph node). Numbers next to gates indicate frequencies (%). Data are presented as mean ± SD.