Developmental changes in hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal activity over the transition to adolescence: Normative changes and associations with puberty

By Megan R. Gunnar, S. Wewerka, K. Frenn, Jeffrey D. Long, Christopher Griggs. Development and Psychopathology, 2009

639 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Home baseline and laboratory stressor (Trier Social Stress Test for Children) measures of salivary cortisol were obtained from 82 participants (40 girls) aged 9, 11, 13, and 15 years. Measures of pubertal development, self-reported stress, parent reports of child depressive symptoms and fearful temperament, and cardiac measures of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity were also obtained. Significant increases in the home cortisol baselines were found with age and pubertal development. Cortisol stress reactivity differed by age group with 11-year-olds and 13-year-old boys showing blunted reactivity and 9-year-olds, 13-year-old girls, and 15-year-olds showing significant cortisol reactions. Cortisol reactivity correlated marginally with sexual maturation. Measures of sympathetic activity revealed increased sympathetic modulation with age. Higher sympathetic tone was associated with more fearful temperament, whereas greater cortisol reactivity was associated with more anxious and depressed symptoms for girls. The importance of these findings for the hypothesis that puberty-associated increases in hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity heightens the risk of psychopathology is discussed.

Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b29192e52004872377a35c7dcb7f3bddfb9c220b

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Citations in the corpus

Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition (2009, background): “Interestingly, studies in human adolescents also suggest that the adolescent period is associated with heightened basal and stress-induced activity of the HPA axi”
Diurnal Cortisol Slopes and Mental and Physical Health Outcomes:A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (2017, background): “First, cortisol levels are responsive to social and psychological stress (Dickerson and Kemeny, 2004; Gunnar et al., 2009a).”
The Adaptive Calibration Model of stress responsivity (2010, background): “…elevation in cortisol after public speaking in 11–13 year old boys, but found the expected cortisol responses in younger and older boys and in girls (Gunnar et al., 2009c; Klimes-Dougan et al., 2001); the significance of this finding is not clear, but indicates that the pubertal transition may…”
PoKi: A Large Dataset of Poems by Children (2020, background): “Regarding arousal, adolescents are thought to experience more intense emotions (Carstensen et al., 2000; Gunnar et al., 2009; Somerville, 2013), perhaps implying heightened tension and stress.”
Acute psychosocial stress: does the emotional stress response correspond with physiological responses? (2012, neutral): “…adolescents (mean age under 18, N = 62) in order to avoid possible features associated with youth and transition to puberty (Kudielka et al., 2004; Gunnar et al., 2009), (b) reviews, reports or meta-analyses due to their non-experimental character (N = 22), (c) studies conducted in clinical…”