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One of the proposed mechanisms linking childhood stressor exposure to negative mental and physical health outcomes in later life is cellular aging. In this prospective, longitudinal, and pre-registered study, we examined the association between a cumulative pattern of childhood risk exposure from age 6 to age 10 (i.e., poor maternal mental health, parental relationship problems, family/friend death, bullying victimization, poor quality friendships) and change in two biomarkers of cellular aging (i.e., telomere length, epigenetic age) from age 6 to age 10 in a Dutch low-risk community sample (n = 193). We further examined the moderating effect of cortisol reactivity at age 6. Ordinary Least Squares regression analyses revealed no significant main effects of childhood risk exposure on change in cellular aging, nor a moderation effect of child cortisol reactivity. Secondary findings showed a positive correlation between telomere length and cortisol reactivity at age 6, warranting further investigation. More research in similar communities is needed before drawing strong conclusions based on the null results., (© 2022 The Authors. Psychophysiology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Psychophysiological Research.)

Noradrenalin modulates prefrontal function, such as working memory (WM), and is associated with enhanced distractibility, and enhanced memory for emotional events and stimuli. The beta-blocker propranolol has been shown to reduce memory for emotional stimuli. Herein we describe investigations aimed at assessing whether the administration of propranolol would reduce the interference by emotional distractions during WM performance. In a between-subjects design, 48 young, healthy men received 80 mg propranolol (n=25) or placebo (n=23), before performing an "emotional Sternberg task" with neutral and negatively arousing distracters. Compared to placebo, propranolol impaired WM at low load, however, it also reduced the interference by emotional distracters at high load. Furthermore, an explorative moderated-mediation analysis indicated that the observed propranolol effects on emotional distraction were partially mediated by cortisol. In future non-clinical and clinical memory studies using propranolol administration, cortisol elevations should be monitored to further investigate the potential mediating role of cortisol., (2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Many studies have incorporated cortisol measurements when studying infant development, but descriptions of normal development of basal cortisol levels in large study populations are scarce. The present study aimed to establish norm values for infant basal cortisol levels and to examine the development of intra-individual variability in the first year of life., Methods: More than 2500 cortisol samples were collected in 300 infants at three different ages. At each age four 1100h samples were collected to determine average cortisol levels and intra-individual variability. The development of basal cortisol levels and intra-individual variability was analyzed with multilevel growth curve modeling., Results: Norm tables with 90 and 95% intervals are presented. Basal cortisol levels decreased gradually over the year. Intra-individual variability was relatively large and stable in the first half year but decreased towards the end of the year., Conclusions: The results of this study will aid researchers in evaluating cortisol data collected in early infancy. It also underscores the importance of taking intra-individual cortisol variability into account in studies involving infants.

Several studies have shown that stress and glucocorticoids can impair prefrontal-dependent working memory (WM) performance. WM is the ability to attend to the task at hand, and to maintain relevant information in mind during a delay while ignoring irrelevant stimuli. Here, it is investigated whether stress hormones impair WM by reducing the ability to suppress distracting, irrelevant neutral and emotional stimuli. Hydrocortisone (35 mg) (n=23) or placebo (n=21) was administered to young, healthy men, who performed a Sternberg WM task with neutral and emotional irrelevant distracters shown in the delay-phase of the task, between encoding and recognition of the relevant stimuli for WM. Contrary to expectations, enhanced WM performance with higher processing speed and a reduction of errors was found in the hydrocortisone group compared to placebo. Moreover, hydrocortisone significantly reduced the distraction by emotional stimuli. These findings show that cortisol effects on WM are not unambiguous and contrast with previous findings on the impairing effects of cortisol on WM. Dose-response studies could give more insight into the specific modulating effects of glucocorticoids on suppression of irrelevant emotional distraction.

Rationale: Propranolol is found to reduce physiological hyper-responsiveness in post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), possibly by affecting reconsolidation after the reactivation of traumatic memories. Cortisol is found to attenuate declarative memory retrieval, but it is unknown whether it also reduces physiological responses to emotional memories., Objectives: To examine whether the effects of propranolol on physiological responding to emotional memories can also be found in healthy controls and to investigate the immediate and prolonged effects of cortisol on physiological responding to emotional memories, we tested these effects in 79 healthy young men., Materials and Methods: After preparing a script of a negative disturbing memory, participants were instructed to imagine this event 1 week later after ingestion of either 35 mg cortisol, 80 mg propranolol, or a placebo. Physiological responding to the script-driven imagery was recorded. Another week later, after washout, the imagery was repeated again. During all three sessions as well as 8 months later, subjective emotional reactions to the memories were assessed., Results: The emotionality of the memories was reduced over time, which was not affected by the treatments, however. The personal emotional script did evoke higher skin conductance responses than a neutral story, which decreased 1 week later, but no effects were found of either propranolol or cortisol on this responsiveness., Conclusions: Whereas healthy males do show psychophysiological responding to personal emotional scripts, the effects of cortisol and propranolol on physiological responses to emotional memories might be specific to clinical groups characterized by hyper-responsiveness, like PTSD. Future studies using longer-acting doses and more elaborate reactivation procedures in both healthy men and women could shed more light on the effects of cortisol and propranolol on psychophysiological responding to emotional memories.

Autobiographical memories have been found to be less specific after hydrocortisone administration in healthy men, resembling memory deficits in, for example, depression. This is the first study to investigate the effects of stress-induced elevated cortisol levels on autobiographic memory specificity and experience in healthy young men. Autobiographical memories were elicited by neutral and negative cue words, with instructions to recall either recent or remote memories. No effect of psychosocial stress was found on memory specificity or experience, but cortisol increases tended to be related to less specific, recent memories elicited by neutral cue words, especially when participants were physically aroused during memory retrieval. These results indicate that autobiographical memories are fairly resistant to an acute stressor in healthy young men, but that endogenous cortisol increases might be related to autobiographical memory retrieval. More research into the relation between endogenous cortisol increases and autobiographic memory retrieval is needed, especially in stress-related disorders.

Background: While acute cortisol administration has been found to impair retrieval of emotional memories in healthy subjects, the duration of this memory impairment is still unknown. Propranolol, on the other hand, may impair the reconsolidation of emotional memories during reactivation, although human studies examining such effects are scarce. The present investigation was therefore undertaken to examine the immediate and prolonged effects of a single administered dose of cortisol or propranolol on memory retrieval in a double-blind placebo controlled design., Methods: Eighty-five healthy male participants were asked to retrieve previously learned emotional and neutral information after ingestion of 35 mg cortisol, 80 mg propranolol or placebo. After a washout period of 1 week, recall was again tested., Results: Memory retrieval of neutral and emotional information was impaired by a single dose of cortisol compared to placebo. The memory impairment due to cortisol remained, even after a washout period of 1 week. No immediate or prolonged effects of propranolol on memory retrieval were found, despite significant reductions in sympathetic arousal., Conclusions: These results lend support to the hypothesis that cortisol is able to attenuate (emotional) memory recall in men over longer time spans and may therefore augment the treatment of disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias, but do not clarify the mechanism(s) through which propranolol exerts its therapeutic effects.

In this study the effects of stress-induced cortisol increases on long-term memory retrieval during and after acute psychosocial stress were examined. Seventy male students were exposed to either a psychosocial stress task or to a non-stressful control task. During and after this task, retrieval was tested for idiosyncratic emotionally negative and neutral word pair associations that were learned 1 day or 5 weeks earlier. Within the stress condition, retrieval of negative words, 5 weeks after learning, was impaired both during and after the stress task compared to the control group. Further, during the stress task, when sympathetic activity was enhanced, impaired retrieval of both neutral and emotional words was significantly related to enhanced cortisol response. In contrast, after the stress task, when cortisol levels were still increased but sympathetic activity was low again, no association was found between cortisol increase and retrieval of either neutral or emotional material. These results are in line with the previous animal research showing that when arousal is high, cortisol increase can impair memory retrieval.

Background: Animal and human studies have found that prior stressful events can result in an altered reactivity in the HPA axis. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of adverse events in childhood on cortisol reactivity to psychosocial stress in young healthy subjects (n=80)., Methods: Salivary cortisol levels were measured before, during and after exposure to a psychosocial stress task in healthy men and women with high (n=33) and low (n=47) exposure to adverse childhood events., Results: A significant blunted cortisol response was found in individuals with a history of adverse events compared to individuals with no adverse life events, with no differences in baseline cortisol levels. This finding appeared to be primarily driven by men. The groups did not differ on any other physiological or subjective stress measure, including heart rate, blood pressure, and subjective tension., Conclusions: These findings suggest that, at least in healthy young males, adverse childhood events are associated with changes in HPA-axis functioning. Longitudinal studies are needed to investigate whether the blunted cortisol response is a risk factor in the etiology of psychiatric disorders or rather reflects resiliency with regard to the development of psychopathology.

Background: Experiencing maltreatment during childhood exerts substantial stress on the child and increases the risk for overweight and obesity later in life. The current study tests whether hair cortisol—a measure of chronic stress—and its metabolite cortisone mediate the relation between abuse and neglect on the one hand, and body mass index (BMI) on the other. Method: The sample consisted of 249 participants aged 8 to 87 years (M = 36.13, SD = 19.33). We collected data on child abuse and neglect using questionnaires, measured cortisol and cortisone concentrations in hair, and BMI. In a structural model, the effects of abuse and neglect on hair cortisol, hair cortisone, and BMI were tested, as well as the covariance between hair cortisol and BMI, and hair cortisone and BMI. Results: Within the sample, 23% were overweight but not obese and 14% were obese. Higher levels of experienced abuse were related to higher cortisone concentrations in hair (β = 0.24, p <.001) and higher BMI (β = 0.17, p =.04). Neglect was not related to hair cortisol, hair cortisone, or BMI. Hair cortisol and cortisone did not mediate the association between maltreatment, and BMI. Sensitivity analyses demonstrate the same pattern of results in a subsample of adult participants currently not living with their parents. However, in younger participants who were still living with their parents, the associations between abuse and cortisone (β = 0.14, p =.35) and abuse and BMI (β = 0.02, p =.92) were no longer significant. Conclusion: These findings confirm that experiencing abuse is related to higher BMI but suggest that hair cortisol and cortisone are not the mechanism underlying the association between child maltreatment and BMI. This is the first study to show abuse may be associated to elevated concentrations of hair cortisone—evidence of long-term alterations in chronic stress levels. Future research may benefit from exploring the effects of maltreatment on weight gain in longitudinal designs, including measures of other potential mediators such as eating as a coping mechanism, and more direct indicators of metabolic health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The ecological validity of video-vignettes design investigating patient-provider communication hinges on the engagement of analogue patients (APs) with the vignette. The present study aimed to compare engagement in two commonly utilized groups of APs, patients and disease-naïve individuals. Engagement was assessed by self-report and in the form of physiological arousal.Methods: Cancer patients (N=22) and disease-naïve individuals (N=24) were recruited as APs. APs completed the Video Engagement Scale after watching a vignette of a oncologic bad news consultation. Electrodermal and cardiovascular activity were assessed continuously during watching the vignette, and cortisol levels were assessed in four saliva samples.Results: Patients reported higher engagement with the vignette than disease-naïve individuals (t=2.46, p<0.05) and showed a larger blood pressure response (systolic: F=5.87, p<0.01 and diastolic: F=4.00, p<0.05). However, these differences disappeared after adjusting for age. No group differences were found on other psychophysiological parameters.Conclusions: Our results suggest that patients and disease-naïve individuals are equally engaged when viewing video vignettes. When group differences were found, older age turned out to be a more prominent predictor of engagement.Practice Implications: Researchers may consider other arguments besides APs' disease history when selecting an AP group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]