Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 71, Issue 4, 15 February 2012, Pages 344-349
Biological Psychiatry

Archival Report
Lifetime Adversity Leads to Blunted Stress Axis Reactivity: Studies from the Oklahoma Family Health Patterns Project

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.10.018Get rights and content

Background

Can stressful events in early life alter the response characteristics of the human stress axis? Individual differences in stress reactivity are considered potentially important in long-term health and disease; however, little is known about the sources of these individual differences. We present evidence that adverse experience in childhood and adolescence can alter core components of the stress axis, including cortisol and heart rate reactivity.

Methods

We exposed 354 healthy young adults (196 women) to public speaking and mental arithmetic stressors in the laboratory. Stress responses were indexed by self-report, heart rate, and cortisol levels relative to measures on a nonstress control day. Subjects were grouped into those who had experienced 0, 1, or 2 or more significant adverse life events, including Physical or Sexual Adversity (mugged, threatened with a weapon, experienced a break-in or robbery or raped or sexually assaulted by a relative or nonrelative) or Emotional Adversity (separation from biological mother or father for at least 6 months before age 15).

Results

Experience of adversity predicted smaller heart rate and cortisol responses to the stressors in a dose-dependent fashion (0 > 1 > 2 or more events) (F values = 5.79 and 8.11, p values < .004) for both men and women. This was not explained by differences in socioeconomic status, the underlying cortisol diurnal cycle, or subjective experience during the stress procedure.

Conclusions

The results indicate a long-term impact of stressful life experience on the reactivity of the human stress axis.

Section snippets

Overview

The Oklahoma Family Health Patterns Project is a study of healthy young adults with and without a family history of alcoholism (n = 156 and n = 198, respectively). Because of the sample size and consistent protocol, the dataset provides a useful resource for assessing the individual differences in stress reactivity in healthy young adults. In preliminary analyses, family history of alcoholism was not a significant predictor of heart rate or cortisol reactivity when adversity was accounted for (F

Results

Demographic data are shown in Table 1. Persons with more lifetime adversity had less education and, among women, had lower SES and higher body mass index. Alcohol intake patterns did not differ across adversity groups, among either men or women, p values ≥ .27. Persons with a family history of alcoholism reported more adverse life events than persons from nonalcoholic families among both men and women.

The psychological impact of the stressors was validated by greater self-reports of activation

Discussion

The present study shows that men and women who experience more adverse life events before age 15 also have smaller cortisol and heart rate responses to psychological stress. These findings seem to illustrate an impact of stress exposure in childhood and adolescence on the regulation of the stress axis in adulthood.

Caspi et al. (20, 21) demonstrated the deleterious effect of childhood maltreatment on psychiatric and behavioral outcomes in persons with genetic vulnerabilities. Other studies have

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