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Cortisol Reactivity (cortisol + reactivity)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Psychology	50%

Selected Abstracts

Cortisol Reactivity Is Positively Related to Executive Function in Preschool Children Attending Head Start

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2005
Clancy Blair
This study examined relations among cortisol reactivity and measures of cognitive function and social behavior in 4- to 5-year-old children (N=169) attending Head Start. Saliva samples for the assay of cortisol were collected at the beginning, middle, and end of an approximately 45-min testing session. Moderate increase in cortisol followed by down-regulation of this increase was positively associated with measures of executive function, self-regulation, and letter knowledge but not with measures of receptive vocabulary, emotion knowledge, or false belief understanding. Regression analysis indicates that executive function accounted for the association between cortisol reactivity and self-regulation and letter knowledge. [source]

Touch attenuates infants' physiological reactivity to stress

DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2010
Ruth Feldman
Animal studies demonstrate that maternal touch and contact regulate infant stress, and handling during periods of maternal deprivation attenuates the stress response. To measure the effects of touch on infant stress reactivity during simulated maternal deprivation, 53 dyads were tested in two paradigms: still-face (SF) and still-face with maternal touch (SF+T). Maternal and infant cortisol levels were sampled at baseline, reactivity, and recovery and mother's and infant's cardiac vagal tone were measured during the free play, still-face, and reunion episodes of the procedure. Cortisol reactivity was higher among infants in the SF condition and while cortisol decreased at recovery for infants in the SF+T, it further increased for those in the SF. Vagal tone showed a greater suppression when SF was not accompanied by maternal touch. Touch synchrony during free play was associated with higher infant vagal tone, whereas touch myssynchrony , maternal tactile stimulation while the infant gaze averts , correlated with higher maternal and infant cortisol. In humans, as in mammals, the provision of touch during moments of maternal unavailability reduces infants' physiological reactivity to stress. [source]

Maternal prenatal anxiety, postnatal caregiving and infants' cortisol responses to the still-face procedure

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOBIOLOGY, Issue 8 2009
Kerry-Ann Grant
Abstract This study prospectively examined the separate and combined influences of maternal prenatal anxiety disorder and postnatal caregiving sensitivity on infants' salivary cortisol responses to the still-face procedure. Effects were assessed by measuring infant salivary cortisol upon arrival at the laboratory, and at 15-, 25-, and 40-min following the still-face procedure. Maternal symptoms of anxiety during the last 6 months of pregnancy were assessed using clinical diagnostic interview. Data analyses using linear mixed models were based on 88 women and their 7-month-old infants. Prenatal anxiety and maternal sensitivity emerged as independent, additive moderators of infant cortisol reactivity, F (3, 180),=,3.29, p,=,.02, F (3, 179),=,2.68, p,=,.05 respectively. Results were independent of maternal prenatal depression symptoms, and postnatal symptoms of anxiety and depression. Infants' stress-induced cortisol secretion patterns appear to relate not only to exposure to maternal prenatal anxiety, but also to maternal caregiving sensitivity, irrespective of prenatal psychological state. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 51: 625,637, 2009 [source]

Cortisol and externalizing behavior in children and adolescents: Mixed meta-analytic evidence for the inverse relation of basal cortisol and cortisol reactivity with externalizing behavior

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOBIOLOGY, Issue 5 2008
Lenneke R.A. Alink
Abstract An inverse relation between cortisol (re)activity and externalizing behavior has been hypothesized, but research findings seem equivocal. We tested this hypo(re)activity hypothesis in two meta-analyses, one for basal cortisol (k,=,72 studies, N,=,5,480) and one for cortisol reactivity to a stressor (k,=,29 studies, N,=,2,601). No association was found between cortisol reactivity and externalizing behaviors (r,=,,.04, 95% CI,=,,.11, .02). However, the relation between basal cortisol and externalizing behavior was significant but small (r,=,,.05, 95% CI,=,,.10, ,.002). The age of the children significantly moderated this relation: Externalizing behavior was associated with higher basal cortisol (hyperactivity) in preschoolers (r,=,.09, 95% CI,=,.002, .17), and with lower basal cortisol (hypoactivity) in elementary school-aged children (r,=,,.14, 95% CI,=,,.19, ,.08). There was no significant relation between cortisol and externalizing behavior in adolescents. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 50: 427,450, 2008. [source]