The Strauss-Kahn Syndrome

Accumulating evidence shows that the central nervous system (CNS) regulates the activity of the immune system. Concerning the role of immune system in cancer, psychosocial influences on immune function provide a mechanism of association between psychosocial factors (like interpersonal aggression) and cancer prognosis. Social conflicts between males, involving high aggression stress and threat (psychosocial conflicts) produce both an allostatic state and allostatic load. The costs for aggressors (Hawks) and victims (losers) tested under semi laboratory conditions are quite different. Testosterone does not cause aggression, only exaggerates the pre-existing pattern and response to environmental triggers of aggression. The individual’s personality type (authoritarian Hawk or Dove) has major impact on psychoneuroimmune mechanisms linking aggression stress through inflammation to cancer. Due to the latest connotations we propose this personality phenomenon label as “the StraussKahn syndrome”.