ABSTRACT
In 1979, before the term psychoneuroimmunology had appeared in print, we conducted a pilot study of voluntary control of white cell function in five children and six adults. Three of these children, who had prior experience in self-hypnosis, demonstrated changes in neutrophil chemoluminescence in the requested direction. This pilot study stimulated us to continue the difficult research in this area. Because studies of voluntary regulation of other autonomic processes indicate that children achieve such control more quickly than adults, we believe that it is reasonable and important to study voluntary immunoregulation in children. The developing immune system of the child is complex (Stiehm & Johnston, 2005). It may be particularly responsive to behavioral effects. Early conditioning of the immune system, whether intentional or not, may have profound long-term effects on immune capacity (Schleifer, Scott, Stein, & Keller, 1986). Many studies in psychoneuroimmunology, involving both animals and humans, were reported in the 1980s and 1990s, but relatively few in humans since then.
