Sex-specific interaction between cortisol and striato-limbic responses to psychosocial stress

Abstract

Although women and men differ in psychological and endocrine stress responses as well as prevalence rates of stress-related disorders, knowledge on sex differences regarding stress regulation in the brain is scarce. Therefore, we performed an in-depth analysis of data from 67 healthy participants (31 women, taking oral contraceptives), who were exposed to the ScanSTRESS paradigm in an fMRI study. Changes in cortisol, affect, heart rate, and neural activation in response to psychosocial stress were examined in women and men as well as potential sex-specific interactions between stress response domains. Stress exposure led to significant cortisol increases with men exhibiting higher levels than women. Dependent on sex, cortisol elevations were differently associated with stress-related responses in striato-limbic structures: Higher increases were associated with activations in men but with deactivations in women. Regarding affect or heart rate responses, no sex differences emerged. Although women and men differ in their overall stress reactivity, our findings do not support the idea of distinct neural networks as base of this difference. Instead, we found differential stress reactions for women and men in identical structures. We propose considering quantitative predictors like sex-specific cortisol increases when exploring neural response differences of women and men.

Neural correlates of everyday moral decision-making: An exploratory ScanSTRESS study.

“…Depending on performing ScanSTRESS PS+ or PS−, cortisol elevations were differently associated with stress-related responses in striatolimbic structures: Higher increases were associated with activations in the ScanSTRESS PS+ group, but with deactivations in the ScanSTRESS PS− group. It is, therefore, tempting to speculate that the present results again suggest that (striato)limbic structures are decisive for the processing of psychosocial stress (Henze et al, 2020(Henze et al, , 2021. In accordance with our investigation of gender effects regarding differences in distinct stress response systems, where we found males and females to exhibit comparable affective and HR outcomes, but to show differences in the underlying neural responses (Henze et al, 2021), our present results demonstrate that merely because a response difference does not manifest psychoendocrinologically or behaviorally, this does not imply that the same is true on the neural level (Cahill, 2006).…”

“…With regard to the induction of acute psychosocial stress, our group recently developed and refined the neuroimaging stress protocol Scan-STRESS (Henze et al, 2020(Henze et al, , 2021Konzok et al, 2021;Streit et al, 2014), applying the same stresseliciting components as in the well-established TSST (i.e., social-evaluative threat and uncontrollability; Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004). Exposure to ScanSTRESS resulted in significant increases in salivary cortisol levels, heart rate (HR), and negative affect (NA) ratings as well as in (de)activations of distinct (pre)limbic structures (Henze et al, 2020).…”

“…To induce acute stress in the fMRI environment, we applied two versions of ScanSTRESS. First, half of our sample was exposed to the original ScanSTRESS paradigm (Henze et al, 2020(Henze et al, , 2021Konzok et al, 2021;Streit et al, 2014), hereafter referred to as "psychosocial" ScanSTRESS (ScanSTRESS PS+). Briefly, ScanSTRESS is composed of an alternating block design (two runs of 680 s duration each), including repeated 60 s task blocks (stress vs. control) preceded by a 5 s announcement and followed by a 20 s rest period.…”

“…Hence, ScanSTRESS PS+ comprised psychosocial stress-eliciting key components as implemented in the TSST (Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004;Kirschbaum et al, 1993). To enhance stress-induced responses, the original ScanSTRESS protocol (Streit et al, 2014) was slightly modified as described in Henze et al (2020Henze et al ( , 2021, without changing the paradigm itself.…”

Suicidal ideation during adolescence: The roles of aggregate genetic liability for suicide attempts and negative life events in the past year

“…Other proximal environmental factors have been documented, supporting the high risk associated with bullying (Holt et al, 2015;O'Reilly et al, 2021;Tang et al, 2020;Zaborskis, Ilionsky, Tesler, & Heinz, 2019), alcohol, and drug use (Mars et al, 2019a;Sher & Zalsman, 2005). Consistent with sex differences in stress reactivity (Henze et al, 2021;Liu & Zhang, 2020), prior evidence suggested that negative life events may differentially affect adolescent boys and girls (Coelho et al, 2018) and lead to different responses (Bordin, Handegard, Paula, Duarte, & Ronning, 2022;Tang et al, 2020). However, this needs further exploration in the context of STB.…”