Early social deprivation and the social buffering of cortisol stress responses in late childhood: An experimental study.

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to investigate the role of early social deprivation in shaping the effectiveness of parent support to alleviate hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis stress responses of children (ages 8.9–11, M = 9.83 years, SD = .55). The sample was equally divided between children who had been adopted internationally from orphanage care by age 5 (N = 40) and an age- and gender-matched group of non-adopted children (N = 40). On average, internationally adopted children were invited to the laboratory 7.6 years post-adoption (SD = 1.45). We experimentally manipulated the provision of parent support during the 5-minute speech preparation period before a modified Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) and examined its effect on levels of salivary cortisol secreted in response to this laboratory stressor. All participants were randomly assigned to receive support from their parent or a stranger. Analyses revealed a significant interaction of support condition and group such that parent support significantly dampened the cortisol stress response in non-adopted children compared to support from a stranger, whereas the cortisol response curves of post-institutionalized children did not differ between the parent and stranger support conditions. Cortisol reactivity for PI children in both conditions was lower than that of non-adopted children in the stranger support condition. Social deprivation during the first few years of life may shape neurobehavioral development in ways that reduce selective responses to caregivers versus strangers.

Developmental psychoneuroendocrine and psychoneuroimmune pathways from childhood adversity to disease

“…Unlike the relatively low basal and stress-induced cortisol responses during childhood, basal cortisol increases from childhood to adolescence and is positively associated with pubertal development (Gunnar et al, 2009b; Gunnar and Vazquez, 2006; Hostinar et al, 2015; Legro, 2003; Netherton et al, 2004; Stroud et al, 2009; Törnhage, 2002). In a sample of almost 400 youth aged 7–15 years, for example, diurnal cortisol was found to positively correlate with pubertal stage (Kiess et al, 1995).…”

“…In one study, 7–12 year old female youth exhibited an attenuated cortisol response and quicker recovery from social evaluation when reunited with their mothers (Seltzer et al, 2010). Similarly, parental support blunted cortisol responses to social evaluation among 9–10 year old children (Hostinar et al, 2015). …”

“…In particular, the circadian rhythm has been shown to flatten with increasing age and greater pubertal development, especially among females (Shirtcliff et al, 2012). In contrast to the parental buffering observed in earlier life, parental support no longer buffers cortisol reactivity to stress during adolescence (i.e., 15–16 year olds) (Hostinar et al, 2015). These changes in HPA-axis functioning during adolescence likely serve an adaptive function.…”

Chronic stress in the mother-infant dyad: Maternal hair cortisol, infant salivary cortisol and interactional synchrony

“…Statistically extreme values (> 3 SD from the mean) which were not explained by illness or medication use were winsorized. Variables were then log transformed using a log10 transformation to meet the assumptions of normality (Brummelte et al, 2011; Grunau et al, 2007; Hostinar, Johnson, & Gunnar, 2015). …”

Neurobiological Programming of Early Life Stress: Functional Development of Amygdala-Prefrontal Circuitry and Vulnerability for Stress-Related Psychopathology

“…Importantly, positive attention bias in foster care youth predicted lower externalizing symptoms at age 8 and lower internalizing problems at age 12, suggesting that positivity-bias following early foster-care placement is associated with improved socioemotional functioning in the long-term (Troller-Renfree et al, 2015; Troller-renfree et al, 2016). However, a recent study of internationally adopted PI children and adolescents found that parental presence during a social stress task had no greater regulatory effect on cortisol reactivity relative to stranger presence, suggesting that social buffering mechanisms may exert differential effects on stress-related neurobiology depending on prior social experiences (Hostinar, Johnson, & Gunnar, 2015). Moreover, animal models have shown that social buffering effects are diminished following atypical caregiving experiences (i.e.…”