Enduring effect of childhood maltreatment on cortisol and heart rate responses to stress: The moderating role of severity of experiences

Abstract

There is a relative consensus about the detrimental impact of childhood maltreatment on later mental health problems and behavioral difficulties. Prior research suggests that neurophysiological stress mechanisms may partly mediate this association. However, inconsistent findings regarding hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and sympathetic responses to stress complicate this investigation. Furthermore, the concordance in these two stress systems is not well understood. We tested whether the severity of maltreatment affected the association between maltreatment and cortisol and heart rate (HR) stress responses and the symmetry of these responses. Participants were 155 males (56 maltreated and 99 controls) aged 18 to 35 years. Cortisol and HR were measured in response to the Trier Social Stress Test. Childhood maltreatment, sociodemographic factors, and health-related factors were measured using self-reported questionnaires. Maltreated participants had higher cortisol responses to stress in comparison to controls. However, a shift from moderate to lower to higher cortisol responses was noted as the severity of the experiences increased. Participants exposed to more experiences of maltreatment also showed a greater symmetry between cortisol and HR stress responses. Our findings provide further support for persistent dysregulation of the HPA axis following childhood maltreatment, of which the expression and symmetry with the sympathetic system may change according to the severity of experiences.

Biological sensitivity to context: A test of the hypothesized U-shaped relation between early adversity and stress responsivity

“…These factors together may explain why the PAWS sample was able to capture a sensitive profile based on HPA axis reactivity. The curvilinear association documented in PAWS between exposures to family adversity and HPA axis reactivity converges with past research (Gunnar et al, 2009; Hagan et al, 2014; Ouellet-Morin et al, 2018), which also has documented heightened HPA axis responsivity under both relatively supportive and stressful rearing conditions.…”

“…Hagan, Roubinov, Purdom Marreiro, and Luecken (2014) examined the relation between college students’ perceptions of interparental conflict (prior to age 16) and cortisol reactivity in response to a challenging interpersonal role-play task. Ouellet-Morin et al (2018) examined the relation between recalled experiences of abuse and neglect (prior to age 18) in a community sample of adult males (ages 18–35) and cortisol reactivity to the Trier Social Stress Test. Consistent with the BSC model, in both studies, higher levels of cortisol reactivity were found among participants who reported either relatively high or low levels of childhood stress (relative to participants who reported moderate childhood adversity) 1…”

Associations between developmental trajectories of peer victimization, hair cortisol, and depressive symptoms: a longitudinal study

“…Our study extends this work by showing that this association is best described according to a nonlinear function, suggesting that the gradient in the severity of exposure should be considered. Consistent with these findings, our team also reported a shift from moderate-to-lower-tohigher levels of salivary cortisol responses to stress in adult males exposed to increasingly severe child maltreatment (Ouellet-Morin et al, 2018).…”

Alterations in heart-brain interactions under mild stress during a cognitive task are reflected in entropy of heart rate dynamics

“…As illustrated, a same stressful situation (CT + S) was interpreted either as innocuous or as a potential threat from one participant to another, as shown by various individual state anxiety. This different perception of stressors, influenced sensory inputs and their respective processing, which led to the well-described variability in physiological responses 13,67–69 .…”