Individual differences in cortisol responses to fear and frustration during middle childhood

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine individual differences in the activation and regulation of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis in pre-pubertal children after exposure to two different stress modalities, and to evaluate the utility of an individual differences approach to the examination of HPA-axis functioning. After a 30 minute controlled baseline period, 73 seven-yearold children (40 males and 33 females) were randomly assigned to a validity check condition, or one of two experimental tasks designed to elicit fear or frustration. This was followed by a 60-minute controlled regulation phase. A total of 17 saliva samples were collected, including 12 post-stress samples at 5-minute intervals. There was a significant stress modality effect, with children exposed to the fear condition reaching peak cortisol levels at 25 minutes post-stress, while those exposed to the frustration condition reached peak levels at 45 minutes post-stress. There was no difference in peak cortisol levels between the stress modalities. Individual variability across conditions was significant with subjects reaching peak levels as early as 10 minutes post-stress and as late as 60 minutes post-stress. Our data suggest that analysis of individual curves prior to making group level comparisons may improve the explanatory power of HPA-axis-behavior models. KeywordsCortisol; Stress; HPA; Fear; Frustration; ChildrenThe study of salivary cortisol has been adopted by behavioral researchers interested in examining a wide range of behaviors and disorders, such as depression (Burke, Davis, Otte, & Mohr, 2005), post-traumatic stress disorder (de Kloet et al., 2006), aggression (Gordis, Granger, Susman, & Trickett, 2006), and social anxiety (Beaton, Schmidt, Ashbaugh, Santesso, & Martin, 2006). Researchers have traditionally observed cortisol responses to laboratory stress tasks in order to examine neuroendocrine reactivity. However, most studies, especially those using pediatric populations, have examined HPA-axis responses to social anxiety paradigms © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.1 Please address all correspondence to Nestor L. Lopez-Duran. PhD. University of Michigan. Department of Psychology. 530 Church Street. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043. E-mail: NESTORL@umich.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. and thus our understanding of cortisol responses to different stress modalities is limited. Furthermore, there is a scarcity of research on individual differences in HPA-axis reactivity in children, and extant studies have usually not examined individual differences...

Effortful control and context interact in shaping neuroendocrine stress responses during childhood

“…The laboratory visit lasted approximately 90 minutes and began between 1500h and 1630h. Time of the laboratory procedure (1500h vs. 1630h) did not influence cortisol levels as previously reported with this sample (see Lopez-Duran et al, 2009a). Detailed description of the experimental procedures are provided elsewhere (Lopez-Duran et al, 2009a).…”

“…The RA then played two 30-minute episodes of the children’s series “Wallace and Gromit” from Aardman Animations. The episodes were “A Grand Day Out” and “A Close Shave.” The videos were selected because they were entertaining enough to keep the child’s attention for extended periods of time but lacked significant emotionally arousing content (for methodological validation of these procedures with this sample, see Lopez-Duran et al, 2009a). …”

“…Effortful Control (EC) is one such dimension of temperament that has received significant attention (see Gunnar et al, 2003; Lisonbee et al, 2010), with a documented role in facilitating the development of emotion-related self-regulation during the early developmental years (Rothbart and Rueda, 2005), and evidence of influence on HPA axis activity (Donzella et al, 2000). The HPA axis, however, is also sensitive to contextual aspects of the experimental paradigms in which it has been studied (Abelson et al, 2007; Gunnar et al, 2009; Lopez-Duran et al, 2009a). It is highly likely that task effects on cortisol responses are shaped by how individuals interpret, experience, or react to laboratory challenges, so it is also likely that temperamental trait differences in self-regulation (like EC) interact with contextual factors to shape results, and such interactions may have contributed to the many inconsistences seen in the HPA literature.…”

“…However, externalizing problems are also associated with problems in self-regulation or EC (Olson et al, 2005) and these characteristics could interact with task demands or contexts in shaping cortisol responses. There is in fact growing evidence that task and context matter in neuroendocrine studies (Abelson et al, 2007; Lopez-Duran et al, 2009a). In their seminal review on stressor paradigms in developmental studies, Gunnar et al (2009) highlight the importance of context in HPA research.…”

Staging Perspectives in Neurodevelopmental Aspects of Neuropsychiatry: Agents, Phases and Ages at Expression

“…For example, Homberg et al (2010 have outlined some recent observations, from studies with 5-hydroxytryptamine transporter (5-HTT) knockout mice and rats, suggesting that these compounds may affect longterm changes in neurodevelopment: (i) these agents target the serotonin transporter which is transiently expressed in many brain areas during development, (ii) serotonin transporter blockade during development causes wiring defects in these areas, observed mainly in the sensory systems, and (iii) the neurobehavioral alterations due to 5-HTT blockade during development differ considerably from those effects during adulthood. Lopez-Duran et al (2009a) examined individual differences in the activation and regulation of the HPA axis in prepubertal children following exposure to two different stress modalities and evaluated the applicability of an individual differences approach to the examination of HPA axis functioning in 73 7-year-old children (40 boys and 33 girls), who were randomly assigned to a validity check condition or one of two experimental tasks designed to elicit fear or frustration. They obtained a significant stress modality effect, with children exposed to the fear condition reaching peak cortisol concentrations at 25 min post-stress and those exposed to the frustration condition reaching peak levels at 45 min post-stress, with individual variability across conditions being significant, and with some participants reaching peak levels as early as 10 min poststress and as late as 60 min post-stress.…”