INTRODUCTION

Abstract

The William T. Grant Foundation supports eight consortia, each devoted to a specific issue, and each consisting of ten to twenty members from a Variety of scientific disciplines. Our purpose is to provide a forum for discussion of ideas, research, and conceptual and theoretical bases of that research to individuals who work in related areas, but who might not under other circumstances have easy communication with each other, especially in the preliminary stages of the development of their research projects. By the time national meetings occur, projects are of necessity completed, and there is no chance for modification using an interdisciplinary approach. We have been very pleased with this device to bring research workers of different disciplines together. The newest of these consortia is devoted to the Developmental Psychobiology of Stress and includes pediatricians, psychologists, and anthropologists who work on both human and animal models. This group moved promptly in their first meeting to bring together a talented group of researchers from different disciplines; the results of their research are presented in this supplement. They well exemplify the advances that have been made in recent years in methodology to study mind-body interactions in infants and older children. Methodologic barriers in the past have limited research on stress in humans. It is stimulating and exciting to see that these barriers are beginning to be overcome, and that research such as is presented here is illuminating this exciting new field. It has enormous application to pediatric practice and child health in the future.