Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 65, Issue 5, 1 March 2009, Pages 409-416
Biological Psychiatry

Archival Report
Daytime Cortisol Secretion in 6-Month-Old Twins: Genetic and Environmental Contributions as a Function of Early Familial Adversity

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.10.003Get rights and content

Background

Dysregulation of daytime cortisol activity has been associated with stress-related pathologies. Research suggests that early environmental adversity might shape cortisol activity. However, little is known about the genetic and environmental contributions to early cortisol and how this varies as a function of environmental circumstances. The goals of the study were to estimate the genetic and environmental contributions to daytime cortisol secretion in infant twins and to investigate whether these contributions varied as a function of familial adversity (FA).

Methods

Participants were 517 6-month-old twins. Salivary cortisol was collected when the infants woke up at home and in the morning, upon arrival at the laboratory. Familial adversity was defined by seven perinatal and postnatal risk factors: maternal smoking during pregnancy, low birth weight, low family income, low maternal education, single parenthood, young motherhood, and maternal hostile/reactive behaviors. Genetic and environment contributions to cortisol activity were estimated for high (three risk factors or more: 21.3% of the sample) versus low FA.

Results

Genetic factors accounted for cortisol levels in different ways: a moderate “main effect” of genes was found for home-based awakening cortisol, whereas the contribution of genes to morning cortisol was conditional to FA. Genetic factors accounted for most of the variance in morning cortisol in high family adversity but not in low family adversity.

Conclusions

Early FA modulates the heritability of morning cortisol in infants. The results are consistent with the diathesis-stress model, with genetic factors more likely to be expressed in adverse settings.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were twins recruited between April 1995 and December 1998 in the greater Montréal area to participate in a longitudinal study. A total of 989 families were contacted, of which 672 agreed to participate (68%). Twins were first seen when they were 6 months of gestational age and then prospectively assessed on a variety of child and family characteristics. Informed consent was obtained from the parents annually. Interviews regarding environmental variables were generally conducted

Results

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of daytime cortisol samples according to pre-, peri- and postnatal variables. No significant differences were found at p < .05. Awakening cortisol was lower when sampled later [t(191) = −2.92, p = .003], perhaps because sleep routine often differs across infants, and parents were instructed to sample saliva when the child naturally awakes. No such difference was detected for the morning sample [t(201) = 1.31, p = .19]. The time of saliva collection

Discussion

The goal of this study was to examine the genetic and environmental contributions to morning cortisol secretion in 6-month-old twins and to determine whether these contributions varied according to FA. Genetic factors accounted for cortisol levels in different ways: a moderate “main effect” of genes was found for home-based awakening cortisol, whereas the contribution of genes to morning cortisol in the laboratory was conditional to FA. Specifically, in low FA settings (typical of most

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