Pubertal recalibration of cortisol reactivity following early life stress: a cross‐sectional analysis

Abstract

Background Children adopted from orphanages or other such institutions tend to display blunted reactivity to stressors – even years after arriving in their generally supportive and highly resourced postadoption homes. Puberty, a proposed sensitive period for environmental influences on stress‐mediating systems, may provide an opportunity for postinstitutionalized children to recalibrate stress response systems in accordance with their now more supportive living situations. Methods This cross‐sectional study examined the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenocortical (HPA)‐axis reactivity of 280 children ages 7 through 14 years; 122 children were adopted from institutions in 14 countries between the ages of 6 months and 5 years, after spending an average of 95% of their lives in institutional care, and 158 children of similarly high socioeconomic status in their biological families served as the nonadopted comparison group. All of the children were assessed by nurses for Tanner stage and, on a different day, completed the Trier Social Stress Test for Children. Results Using a linear mixed‐effects model and seven measures of salivary cortisol, results indicated that early‐pubertal postinstitutionalized children showed blunted HPA axis reactivity compared to nonadopted children, but mid/late‐pubertal postinstitutionalized children displayed higher reactivity similar to the nonadopted comparison children. Conclusions This is the first evidence of possible pubertal recalibration of HPA axis reactivity to a psychosocial stressor in postinstitutionalized children, which provides a promising avenue for future research regarding the protective factors of the postadoption environment and subsequent physiological, behavioral, and psychopathological outcomes.

Pubertal stress recalibration reverses the effects of early life stress in postinstitutionalized children

“…See SI Appendix, SI Materials and Methods, for details of our method for maintaining responses across repeated trials of the TSST. We previously reported preliminary evidence of recalibration using a cross-sectional examination of the data from the first session (26). The present analysis focused on the cortisol response to the TSST-C as a function of within individual increases in pubertal stage.…”

Neglect, HPA axis reactivity, and development

“…In addition, emerging evidence points to puberty as another salient age when stress systems may be plastic and shaped by experience. For example, PI children demonstrate a recalibration to normative HPA axis reactivity to a psychosocial stressor following the onset of puberty (DePasquale et al, 2018). Somewhat analogous findings have been reported for maltreated children (King et al, 2017).…”

“…This pattern of sex differences has not yet been clearly demonstrated. Interestingly, a study comparing a group of PI adolescents to a group of never‐institutionalized adolescents found no evidence of sex differences in the recalibration of cortisol responses during puberty (DePasquale et al, 2018). Overall, evidence of child sex as a moderator of the influence of neglect on HPA axis function is extremely under‐examined.…”

Early adversity, child neglect, and stress neurobiology: From observations of impact to empirical evaluations of mechanisms

“…Most research looking at the effects of early adversity on HPA axis development have focused on diurnal cortisol levels in infants and toddlers. Less is known about HPA axis development through adolescence, although some studies suggest that the HPA axis may undergo a second large wave of change or recalibration during puberty among adolescents who have experienced early life stress (e.g., DePasquale et al, 2019; Quevedo et al, 2012). Nevertheless, neurobiological effects of early adversity can and often do persist into adulthood (for review, see Lupien et al, 2009).…”