Editorial: Psychobiological Research in Psychosomatic Medicine

In the launching of " Psychobiological Research in Psychosomatic Medicine " topic, we defined the principal goal of psychosomatic medicine as " the integration of biological, psychological, and social systems that may influence health or pathology, namely in chronic diseases and co-morbid physical and psychiatric disorders. " According to Fava et al. (1) in the interdisciplinary field of Psychosomatic Medicine, psychosocial factors influencing individual vulnerability to diseases include life events and allostatic load, health attitudes and behaviors, social support, psychological well-being, spirituality, and personality. The Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research facilitated the translation of psychosocial variables that derived from psychosomatic research into operational tools, imperative in a clinical setting. From neurosciences perspective the investigation should clarify neural processes that may link psychosocial stressors and inflammation, in several pathologies, such as cancer (2). In the present topic, we attempted to promote a scientific forum for exploring these multiple pathways. Indeed, psychobiological research, in our times, can go through a wide range of levels. Departing from molecular analysis, we can hope to be able to infer a sort of biological signatures associated with particular symptom clusters, in a dimensional approach, or with different diseases, as discrete entities. From a psychophysiological level, we may pursue the comprehension of the pathways that link the effects of early childhood adversity, chronic stress, social support and health, through neuroendocrine and autonomic mechanisms that determine the stress responses. At a mac-roscopic level, we can explore the role of individual sociodemographic variables such as ethnicity, personality, treatment modalities, and health promotion through psycho-educational interventions. The collected papers present different contributions for understanding the variability of processes that make more evident the link between individual differences (at organic and psychosocial levels) and illness. Coelho et al., using animal models, explored the role of adenosine, which acts as a neuromodula-tor in several brain areas and seems to play an important influence on other neurotransmitters, also implicated in a wide range of brain processes and diseases. They studied the interaction of A2AR receptors and dopamine, particularly the impact of A2AR overexpression in cortical areas in dopa-mine related behaviors. This overexpression in hippocampus, cortex, and striatum is associated with depressive-like behaviors and increased locomotor activity. Additionally, the A2AR overexpression in forebrain is related to depression, which may explain the depressive signs seen in aging, chronic stress, and Alzheimer's disease. Perhaps in a psychophysiological perspective, we achieved a better understanding of the relations …