Cardiovascular, hormonal, and emotional responses to the TSST in relation to sex and menstrual cycle phase

Abstract

The prevalence of stress disorders differs between men and women. An understanding of how men and women vary in acute stress responses may help to understand these sex differences. We compared responses to the TSST and a control task in healthy men (N=28) and women tested in two phases (Follicular N=29, Luteal N=23) of the menstrual cycle. Men exhibited greater cortisol responses to stress than women in either phase. Luteal women exhibited the greatest subjective and allopregnanolone responses to stress, whereas follicular women exhibited blunted noradrenaline responses. Partial correlations controlling for group differences revealed that individuals who were most sensitive to the subjective effects of stress exhibited the largest salivary cortisol, noradrenaline, and allopregnanolone responses and the smallest progesterone responses to stress. We discuss our findings in the context of sex differences in the prevalence of stress-linked disorders.

Enhancing effects of acute psychosocial stress on priming of non-declarative memory in healthy young adults

“…The TSST was indeed able to induce stress, since it stimulated an increase in the participant's cortisol concentrations and a higher sAA release compared to the control condition. Sex had a modulating effect on the stressinduced cortisol response, as has been shown in other studies (Kirschbaum et al 1992(Kirschbaum et al , 1999Preub and Wolf 2009;Childs et al 2010). Women in the follicular phase of their menstrual cycle or using OCs did not differ in their cortisol concentrations in any sample of the stress condition or the control condition.…”

Differential effects of alexithymia subscales on autonomic reactivity and anxiety during social stress

“…Also, animal studies support this notion by demonstrating that corticosterone administration increases depression-like behaviors [30,31]. Recently, Childs et al [32] demonstrated that individuals who were most stress sensitive exhibited the largest salivary cortisol responses in the Trierer Stress Task. This close relationship between HPA axis and emotions is also found on the level of underlying neural structures.…”

“…We used the last quartile to categorize participants as having high (HDA; n=15) degrees of alexithymia and compared them to the other participants categorized as having low (LDA; n=45) degrees of alexithymia. In the HDA group, total TAS score was 52.3 (range 45-66) as compared to the LDA group, which had a total TAS score of 33.0 (range [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43]. Both groups significantly differed in total TAS score [T (df=58)=−11.58, Pb.001] as well as in the three subscores Furthermore, all participants were screened for health status using a detailed anamnestic questionnaire.…”

Divergent neuroactive steroid responses to stress and ethanol in rat and mouse strains: relevance for human studies

“…However, others have also reported no change in serum 3α,5α-THP levels after acute stress, albeit different stress paradigms and time points were examined (Altemus et al 2001; Childs and de Wit 2009; Childs et al 2010; Girdler et al 2006). Most of the studies in humans have focused on dysregulation of the HPA axis associated to several psychiatric and neurologic conditions.…”