Acute inflammation and psychomotor slowing: Experimental assessment using lipopolysaccharide administration in healthy humans

Analena Handke; John Axelsson; Sven Benson; Karoline Boy; Vera Weskamp; Till Hasenberg; Miriam Remy; Johannes Hebebrand; Manuel Föcker; Alexandra Brinkhoff; Meike Unteroberdörster; Harald Engler; Manfred Schedlowski; Julie Lasselin

doi:10.1016/j.bbih.2020.100130

Acute inflammation and psychomotor slowing: Experimental assessment using lipopolysaccharide administration in healthy humans

Brain Behav Immun Health. 2020 Aug 20:8:100130. doi: 10.1016/j.bbih.2020.100130. eCollection 2020 Oct.

Authors

Analena Handke¹, John Axelsson^{2

3}, Sven Benson¹, Karoline Boy¹, Vera Weskamp¹, Till Hasenberg⁴, Miriam Remy⁵, Johannes Hebebrand⁵, Manuel Föcker^{5

6}, Alexandra Brinkhoff^{1

7}, Meike Unteroberdörster^{1

8}, Harald Engler¹, Manfred Schedlowski¹, Julie Lasselin^{1

2

3

9}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioral Immunobiology, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany.
² Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
³ Division for Psychology, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁴ Helios Adipositas Zentrum West, Helios St. Elisabeth Klinik Oberhausen, Witten/Herdecke University, Oberhausen, Germany.
⁵ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Essen, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.
⁶ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University Hospital Muenster, Muenster, Germany.
⁷ Department of Nephrology, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany.
⁸ Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Essen, Essen, Germany.
⁹ Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

Abstract

Data from clinical and cross-sectional studies suggest that inflammation contributes to psychomotor slowing and attentional deficits found in depressive disorder. However, experimental evidence is still lacking. The aim of this study was to clarify the effect of inflammation on psychomotor slowing using an experimental and acute model of inflammation, in which twenty-two healthy volunteers received an intravenous injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS, dose: 0.8 ng/kg body weight) and of placebo, in a randomized order following a double-blind within-subject crossover design. A reaction time test and a go/no-go test were conducted 3 h after the LPS/placebo injection and interleukin (IL)-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α concentrations were assessed. No effect of experimental inflammation on reaction times or errors for either test was found. However, inflammation was related to worse self-rated performance and lower effort put in the tasks. Exploratory analyses indicated that reaction time fluctuated more over time during acute inflammation. These data indicate that acute inflammation has only modest effects on psychomotor speed and attention in healthy subjects objectively, but alters the subjective evaluation of test performance. Increased variability in reaction time might be the first objective sign of altered psychomotor ability and would merit further investigation.

Keywords: Cytokine; Go/no-go; Inflammation; Lipopolysaccharide; Psychomotor slowing; Reaction time; Sickness.