Inflammation is related to a number of psychological and health-related factors. However, inflammatory activation is challenging to induce and measure in laboratory settings. Here, we introduce several new techniques and procedures for precisely inducing inflammation using ultraviolet (UV) light. These methods are based on a technique known as minimal erythema dose (MED) testing, which is frequently used in clinical settings for determining the smallest amount of UV radiation necessary to produce erythema (inflammatory reddening) on the surface of the skin. MED testing also has potential to be a powerful tool for assessing within- and between-persons variation in inflammatory responses. However, MED testing has not been widely adopted for use in research settings, likely owing to a lack of published guidelines, which is a barrier to obtaining reproducible results from this assay. To address this barrier, here we describe a precise and reproducible method to induce and measure superficial erythema using newly designed protocols and methods.
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