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This study aimed to characterize the role of sex and pubertal markers in reward motivation behavior and neural processing in early adolescence. We used baseline and two-year follow-up data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive DevelopmentSM study (15844 observations; 52% from boys; age 9-13). Pubertal development was measured with parent-reported Pubertal Development Scale, and DHEA, testosterone, and estradiol levels. Reward motivation behavior and neural processing at anticipation and feedback stages were assessed with the Monetary Incentive Delay task. Boys had higher reward motivation than girls, demonstrating greater accuracy difference between reward and neutral trials and higher task earnings. Girls had lower neural activation during reward feedback than boys in the nucleus accumbens, caudate, rostral anterior cingulate, medial orbitofrontal cortex, superior frontal gyrus and posterior cingulate. Pubertal stage and testosterone levels were positively associated with reward motivation behavior, although these associations changed when controlling for age. There were no significant associations between pubertal development and neural activation during reward anticipation and feedback. Sex differences in reward-related processing exist in early adolescence, signaling the need to understand their impact on typical and atypical functioning as it unfolds into adulthood.

Sex is a significant source of heterogeneity in schizophrenia, with more negative symptoms in males and more affective symptoms and internalizing comorbidity in females. In this narrative review, we argue that there are likely sex differences in the pathophysiological mechanisms of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SZ) that originate during puberty and relate to the sex-specific impacts of pubertal maturation on brain development. Pubertal maturation might also trigger underlying (genetic or other) vulnerabilities in at-risk individuals, influencing brain development trajectories that contribute to the emergence of SZ. This review is the first to integrate links between pubertal development and neural development with cognitive neuroscience research in SZ to form and evaluate these hypotheses, with a focus on the frontal-striatal and frontal-limbic networks and their hypothesized contribution to negative and mood symptoms respectively. To test these hypotheses, longitudinal research with human adolescents is needed that examines the role of sex and pubertal development using large cohorts or high risk samples. We provide recommendations for such studies, which will integrate the fields of psychiatry, developmental cognitive neuroscience, and developmental endocrinology towards a more nuanced understanding of the role of pubertal factors in the hypothesized sex-specific pathophysiological mechanisms of schizophrenia.

Stress contributes to transdiagnostic morbidity and mortality across a wide range of physical and mental health problems. VR tasks have been validated as stressors with robust effect sizes for VR-based stressors to evoke stress across the most common autonomic and adrenocortical stress biomarkers. However, meta-analytic validation of VR stressors have resulted in inconsistent logic: why should something that isn't real evoke a very real suite of stress responses? This review posits that conceptually addressing this question requires differentiating a cause, "stressor", from effects, "stress". Stress comprises a series of well-delineated perturbations in biological systems, such as autonomic and adrenocortical biomarkers in response to stressors. Despite their ubiquity, decades of literature have back-calculated stressor intensity based on the magnitude of a stress response. This causal directionality is not logical, yet remains pervasive because seemingly objective stress indices have generated a wealth of findings showing how stress gets under the skin and skull. This has created challenges for providing clear guidance and strategies to measure acute stressor intensity. Binary thinking about whether something is (not) real has stifled advances in understanding how to measure the dosage of a stressful environment. As a function of being programmed, individualizable, and titrated, virtual reality (VR) based stressors offer the field a platform for quantifying the dose of a stressor and generating reliable dose-response curves. This also raises the possibility to safely and ethically integrate psychosocial stressor administration into clinical and therapeutic settings. For example, Social Evaluative Threat experiments effectively trigger a stress response both in a laboratory setting and in built environments, while also upholding hard-fought trust and rapport with care providers. By focusing attention on the measurement of the stressor, VR paradigms can advance tangible understanding of stressors themselves and the pathways to the stress response., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

This review article was awarded the Dirk Hellhammer award from ISPNE in 2023. It explores the dynamic relationship between stressors and stress from a historical view as well as a vision towards the future of stress research via virtual reality (VR). We introduce the concept of a "syncytium," a permeable boundary that blurs the distinction between stress and stressor, in order to understand why the field of stress biology continues to inadequately measure stress alone as a proxy for the force of external stressors. Using Virtual Reality (VR) as an illustrative example to explicate the black box of stressors, we examine the distinction between 'immersion' and 'presence' as analogous terms for stressor and stress, respectively. We argue that the conventional psychological approaches to stress measurement and appraisal theory unfortunately fall short in quantifying the force of the stressor, leading to reverse causality fallacies. Further, the concept of affordances is introduced as an ecological or holistic tool to measure and design a stressor's force, bridging the gap between the external environment and an individual's physiological response to stress. Affordances also serve to ameliorate shortcomings in stress appraisal by integrating ecological interdependencies. By combining VR and psychobiological measures, this paper aims to unravel the complexity of the stressor-stress syncytium, highlighting the necessity of assessing both the internal and external facets to gain a holistic understanding of stress physiology and shift away from reverse causality reasoning. We find that the utility of VR extends beyond presence to include affordance-based measures of immersion, which can effectively model stressor force. Future research should prioritize the development of tools that can measure both immersion and presence, thereby providing a more comprehensive understanding of how external stressors interact with individual psychological states., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None, (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This study aimed to characterize the role of sex and pubertal markers in reward motivation behavior and neural processing in early adolescence. We used baseline and two-year follow-up data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development SM study (15844 observations; 52% from boys; age 9-13). Pubertal development was measured with parent-reported Pubertal Development Scale, and DHEA, testosterone, and estradiol levels. Reward motivation behavior and neural processing at anticipation and feedback stages were assessed with the Monetary Incentive Delay task. Boys had higher reward motivation than girls, demonstrating greater accuracy difference between reward and neutral trials and higher task earnings. Girls had lower neural activation during reward feedback than boys in the nucleus accumbens, caudate, rostral anterior cingulate, medial orbitofrontal cortex, superior frontal gyrus and posterior cingulate. Pubertal stage and testosterone levels were positively associated with reward motivation behavior, although these associations changed when controlling for age. There were no significant associations between pubertal development and neural activation during reward anticipation and feedback. Sex differences in reward-related processing exist in early adolescence, signaling the need to understand their impact on typical and atypical functioning as it unfolds into adulthood., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Adverse early life experiences, such as child maltreatment, shapes hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity. The impact of social context is often probed through laboratory stress reactivity, yet child maltreatment is a severe form of chronic stress that recalibrates even stable or relatively inflexible stress systems such as cortisol's diurnal rhythm. This study was designed to determine how different social contexts, which place divergent demands on children, shape cortisol's diurnal rhythm. Participants include 120 adolescents (9-14 years), including 42 youth with substantiated child physical abuse. Up to 32 saliva samples were obtained in the laboratory, on days youth stayed home, and on school days. A 3-level hierarchical linear model examined cortisol within each day and extracted the diurnal rhythm at level 1; across days at level 2; and between-individual differences in cortisol and its rhythm at level 3. While cortisol's diurnal rhythm was flattened when youth were in the novel laboratory context, the impact of maltreatment was observed within the home context such that maltreated children had persistently flattened diurnal rhythms. The effect of maltreatment overlapped with current chronic interpersonal family stress. Results are consistent with the idea that maltreatment exerts a robust, detrimental impact on the HPA axis and are interpreted in the context of less flexibility and rhythmicity. The HPA axis adapts by encoding signifiers of relevant harsh or unpredictable environments, and the extreme stress of physical abuse in the family setting may be one of these environments which calibrates the developing child's stress responsive system, even throughout a developmental stage in which the family takes on diminishing importance., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors reported no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Adolescence represents a window of vulnerability for developing psychological symptoms following concussion, especially in girls. Concussion-related lesions in emotion regulation circuits may help explain these symptoms. However, the contribution of sex and pubertal maturation remains unclear. Using the neurite density index (NDI) in emotion regulation tracts (left/right cingulum bundle [CB], forceps minor [FMIN], and left/right uncinate fasciculus), we sought to elucidate these relationships., Methods: No adolescent had a history of anxiety and/or depression. The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders and Children's Depression Rating Scale were used at scan to assess anxiety and depressive symptoms in 55 concussed adolescents (41.8% girls) and 50 control adolescents with no current/history of concussion (44% girls). We evaluated if a mediation-moderation model including the NDI (mediation) and sex or pubertal status (moderation) could help explain this relationship., Results: Relative to control adolescents, concussed adolescents showed higher anxiety (p = .003) and lower NDI, with those at more advanced pubertal maturation showing greater abnormalities in 4 clusters: the left CB frontal (p = .002), right CB frontal (p = .011), FMIN left-sided (p = .003), and FMIN right-sided (p = .003). Across all concussed adolescents, lower NDI in the left CB frontal and FMIN left-sided clusters partially mediated the association between concussion and anxiety, with the CB being specific to female adolescents. These effects did not explain depressive symptoms., Conclusions: Our findings indicate that lower NDI in the CB and FMIN may help explain anxiety following concussion and that adolescents at more advanced (vs less advanced) status of pubertal maturation may be more vulnerable to concussion-related injuries, especially in girls., (Copyright © 2022 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Prenatal hair cortisol concentration is inconsistently associated with maternal psychological distress. However, prior studies have not often measured hair cortisol and maternal psychological distress prospectively over time, examined within-person associations, nor concurrently considered the complex hormonal milieu in which cortisol operates during pregnancy. We addressed these limitations and tested associations against a similar non-pregnant comparison group. Participants included 68 women (34 pregnant and 34 non-pregnant; M age  = 29.14 and 83 % White) from the Midwestern United States. Pregnant women were assessed each trimester, at 12, 26, and 38 weeks and non-pregnant women were assessed three times on the same schedule. At each assessment, participants completed measures of psychological distress and provided hair samples. The first 3 cm (from the scalp) of hair was assayed using enzyme immune-assay kits to reflect cumulative levels within the given trimester/3-month time period of cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and testosterone. Within-person associations of hair cortisol and ratio of hair cortisol-to-DHEA and cortisol-to-testosterone with psychological distress were assessed using multilevel models. There were positive within-person associations of hair cortisol with cumulative psychological distress (γ = 0.01, s.e. = 0.003, p = .049), anxiety (γ = 0.09, s.e.  = 0.04, p  = .046), and pregnancy-related anxiety symptoms (γ = 0.10, s.e.  = 0.05, p  = .041) in the pregnant sample such that on occasions when hair cortisol was higher than average so were psychological distress symptoms. No within-person associations of hair cortisol were supported in non-pregnant women although there was a negative within-person association, such that on occasions of having lower testosterone level than typical, depression symptoms were higher. There were no within-person associations of psychological distress and cortisol-to-DHEA ratio or cortisol-to-testosterone ratio in either the pregnant or non-pregnant sample. At the between person-level for pregnant women, lower cortisol levels were associated with higher perceived stress (γ =  - 0.28, s.e.  = 0.09, p  = .003) and depression symptoms (γ =  - 0.11, s.e.  = 0.06, p  = .039), whereas higher cortisol levels were associated with higher psychological distress (γ = 0.03, s.e.  = 0.01, p  = .010), state anxiety (γ = 0.33, s.e.  = 0.13, p  = .010), and depression symptoms (γ = 0.23, s.e.  = 0.09, p  = .017) in non-pregnant women. Modeling hair cortisol at the within-person and between-person level revealed differential findings in pregnant and non-pregnant women. Hair cortisol concentration, psychological distress, pregnancy, hormone coupling, within-person associations., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Substance use increases throughout adolescence, and earlier substance use may increase risk for poorer health. However, limited research has examined whether stress responses relate to adolescent substance use, especially among adolescents from ethnic minority and high-adversity backgrounds. The present study assessed whether blunted emotional and cortisol responses to stress at age 14 related to substance use by ages 14 and 16, and whether associations varied by poverty status and sex. A sample of 277 Mexican-origin youth (53.19% female; 68.35% below the poverty line) completed a social-evaluative stress task, which was culturally adapted for this population, and provided saliva samples and rated their anger, sadness, and happiness throughout the task. They also reported whether they had ever used alcohol, marijuana, cigarettes, and vaping of nicotine at age 14 and again at age 16. Multilevel models suggested that blunted cortisol reactivity to stress was associated with alcohol use by age 14 and vaping nicotine by age 16 among youth above the poverty line. Also, blunted sadness and happiness reactivity to stress was associated with use of marijuana and alcohol among female adolescents. Blunted stress responses may be a risk factor for substance use among youth above the poverty line and female adolescents.

Activational effects of the reproductive neuroendocrine system may explain why some youths with ADHD are at greater risk for exacerbated ADHD symptoms (hyperactivity, inattention, impulsivity) during adolescence. For youths diagnosed with ADHD, first signs of ADHD symptoms become noticeable by multiple reporters (e.g., teachers, parents) when children enter schools, typically around kindergarten. The current study examined possible sex differences in ADHD, impairment, and comorbidity due to pubertal effects, as the role of pubertal development in ADHD is understudied. ADHD symptoms, depressive symptoms, impairment, and pubertal stage were assessed annually by multiple reporters in a well-characterized community sample of 849 children over-recruited for ADHD over eight years. Ages ranged from 7 to 13 years (38.16% female) at wave 1. Multilevel models indicated that males had higher levels of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention than females, but that females had higher levels of impairment than males. Inattention symptoms did not show marked maturation changes. Hyperactivity and impulsivity declined as youth aged and impairment increased as youth aged. Lastly, depressive symptoms largely increased as youth aged and were higher amongst youth at later pubertal stages. Put together, aging and pubertal development are associated with improved ADHD symptoms but not for youth with high impairment. Findings from this study contributes to understanding the role that aging, pubertal status, and pubertal development plays in ADHD, impairment, and comorbidity in children and adolescents., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Early adolescence, with the onset of puberty, is an important period when sex differences in anxiety emerge, with girls reporting significantly higher anxiety symptoms than boys. This study examined the role of puberty on fronto-amygdala functional connectivity and risk of anxiety symptoms in 70 girls (age 11-13) who completed a resting state fMRI scan, self-report measures of anxiety symptoms and pubertal status, and provided basal testosterone levels (64 girls). Resting state fMRI data were preprocessed using fMRIPrep and connectivity indices were extracted from ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and amygdala regions-of-interest. We tested moderated mediation models and hypothesized that vmPFC-amygdala would mediate the relation between three indices of puberty (testosterone and adrenarcheal/gonadarcheal development) and anxiety, with puberty moderating the relation between connectivity and anxiety. Results showed a significant moderation effect of testosterone and adrenarcheal development in the right amygdala and a rostral/dorsal area of the vmPFC and of gonadarcheal development in the left amygdala and a medial area of the vmPFC on anxiety symptoms. Simple slope analyses showed that vmPFC-amygdala connectivity was negatively associated with anxiety only in girls more advanced in puberty suggesting that sensitivity to the effects of puberty on fronto-amygdala function could contribute to risk for anxiety disorders among adolescent girls., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Pubertal processes are associated with structural brain development, but studies have produced inconsistent findings that may relate to different measurements of puberty. Measuring both hormones and physical characteristics is important for capturing variation in neurobiological development. The current study explored associations between cortical thickness and latent factors from multi-method pubertal data in 174 early adolescent girls aged 10-13 years in the Transitions in Adolescent Girls (TAG) Study. Our multi-method approach used self-reported physical characteristics and hormone levels (dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), testosterone (T), and estradiol (E2) from saliva) to estimate an overall pubertal factor and for each process of adrenarche and gonadarche. There were negative associations between the overall puberty factor representing later stage and thickness in the posterior cortex, including the occipital cortices and extending laterally to the parietal lobe. However, the multi-method latent factor had weaker cortical associations when examining the adnearcheal process alone, suggesting physical characteristics and hormones capture different aspects of neurobiological development during adrenarche. Controlling for age weakened some of these associations. These findings show that associations between pubertal stage and cortical thickness differ depending on the measurement method and the pubertal process, and both should be considered in future confirmatory studies on the developing brain., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Michelle Byrne reports financial support was provided by National Institute of Mental Health. Theresa Cheng reports financial support was provided by National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Earlier pubertal development appears to be one pathway through which childhood trauma contributes to psychopathology in adolescence. Puberty-related changes in neural networks involved in emotion processing, namely the amygdala-medial prefrontal (mPFC) circuit, may be a potential mechanism linking trauma and adolescent psychopathology. Our participants were 227 youth between 10 and 13 years of age who completed assessments of threat and deprivation-related experiences of adversity, pubertal stage, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. A subset (n = 149) also underwent a functional MRI scan while passively viewing fearful and calm faces. Potential mechanisms linking childhood trauma with psychopathology, encompassing earlier pubertal timing and neural response to aversive stimuli were explored. Earlier pubertal development was associated with childhood trauma as well as increased externalizing symptoms in boys only. Earlier pubertal timing in males and females was negatively associated with activation in bilateral amygdala, hippocampal, and fusiform regions when comparing fearful and calm faces. However, amygdala-mPFC connectivity showed no association with pubertal timing or psychopathology symptoms. These findings do not support accelerated amygdala-mPFC development as a mechanism linking childhood trauma and psychopathology, but instead provide support for the role of pubertal development in normative decreases in limbic activation across development., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Sex is a significant source of heterogeneity in schizophrenia, with more negative symptoms in males and more affective symptoms and internalizing comorbidity in females. In this narrative review, we argue that there are likely sex differences in the pathophysiological mechanisms of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders (SZ) that originate during puberty and relate to the sex-specific impacts of pubertal maturation on brain development. Pubertal maturation might also trigger underlying (genetic or other) vulnerabilities in at-risk individuals, influencing brain development trajectories that contribute to the emergence of SZ. This review is the first to integrate links between pubertal development and neural development with cognitive neuroscience research in SZ to form and evaluate these hypotheses, with a focus on the frontal-striatal and frontal-limbic networks and their hypothesized contribution to negative and mood symptoms respectively. To test these hypotheses, longitudinal research with human adolescents is needed that examines the role of sex and pubertal development using large cohorts or high risk samples. We provide recommendations for such studies, which will integrate the fields of psychiatry, developmental cognitive neuroscience, and developmental endocrinology towards a more nuanced understanding of the role of pubertal factors in the hypothesized sex-specific pathophysiological mechanisms of schizophrenia., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have declared that there are no conflicts of interest in relation to the subject of this study., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Exposure to pervasive racial discrimination of Black Americans is transgenerational in that mothers' experiences of discriminatory violence impacts their children. This study explored whether stress-related biomarkers reflect transgenerational racial stress by implementing a "dual activation" framework to probe how adrenal and gonadal hormones underlying adolescent development are co-regulated during a laboratory stressor. Data were collected from 120 Black families in the United States. Children completed the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST-C) and provided 4 saliva samples across 2 days that were assayed for cortisol (C), dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and testosterone (T). Mothers reported their experiences of total discrimination and racial discrimination related to skin color/race. Thirty four percent reported experiences of discrimination and on average 46.7% reported experiences of discrimination due to their race or skin tone. Mothers' experiences of racial discrimination were associated with their child's hormonal reactivity to and recovery from the TSST-C. Youth showed stronger positive hormone coupling between C-T if their mother experienced greater discrimination. Mothers' experiences of racial discrimination influenced both C-T coupling and youths' cortisol recovery from the TSST-C. For youths with high testosterone, cortisol recovery was blunted. Results suggest that associations between racism and hormonal stress response may be transgenerational. Mothers' experiences of discrimination had a profound impact on their children's hormonal co-regulation., Competing Interests: Disclosure Statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Bicyclists are vulnerable road users who are at a greater risk for injury and fatality during crashes. Additionally, the "near-miss" incidents they experience during regular trips can increase the perceived risk and deter them from riding again. This paper aims to use naturalistic bicycling data collected in Johnson County, Iowa to: 1) study the effect of factors such as road surface type, parked vehicles, pavement markings and car passing events on cyclists' physiological stress and 2) understand the effect of daytime running lights (DRL) as an on-bicycle safety system in providing comfort to cyclists and highlight of their presence on the road to other vehicles. A total of 37 participants were recruited to complete trips over two weekends, one weekend with DRL and the other without DRL. Recruitment was specifically targeted toward cyclists who expressed discomfort riding in traffic. Data were collected using a front forward facing camera, GPS, and a vehicle lateral passing distance sensor mounted on the bicycle and a Empatica E4 wrist band (providing physiological data such as electrodermal activity; EDA) worn by the cyclist. Data from those sources were cleaned, processed, merged, and aggregated into time windows depicting car passing and no car passing events. Mixed effects models were used to study the cyclists' skin conductance response (phasic EDA) and baseline skin conductance level (tonic EDA). Car passing, parked vehicles, and roads with dashed centerline markings were observed to increase the cyclists stress. The use of DRL had negligible impact on cyclist stress on roads.

Recent scholarship has highlighted the importance of understanding relations between hormones, rather than studying hormones in isolation. Considering neuroendocrine coupling, or the coordination of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis hormones over time, is one way to investigate how systems governing stress responsiveness and pubertal development covary during critical periods. To date, however, most work has considered hormone coupling cross-sectionally. The current study investigated neuroendocrine coupling in a longitudinal sample from the Northeastern United States. Youth (N = 437, 53% male, 90% White) provided saliva samples for analysis of diurnal hormone activity at ages 9 (three samples per day across 3 days) and 12 (one sample per day on the same weekday for 4 weeks). At both timepoints, samples collected 30-min after waking were assayed for cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and testosterone. Multilevel growth modeling was used to determine how levels of morning cortisol changed in tandem with DHEA and testosterone. Morning cortisol-DHEA coupling varied by child sex, as males' cortisol-DHEA diminished over time, especially among pubertally advanced males. Females, in contrast, demonstrated strengthening cortisol-DHEA coupling over time, especially more pubertally advanced females. Morning cortisol-testosterone coupling did not vary by sex or pubertal status, demonstrating strengthening associations between ages 9 and 12. The current findings contribute to the literature on hormone coupling across development and expand this work into an earlier developmental phase than previously investigated., (© 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

The thrifty phenotype and fetal overnutrition hypotheses are two developmental hypotheses that originated from the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) perspective. The DOHaD posits that exposures experienced prenatally and early in life may influence health outcomes through altering form and function of internal organs related to metabolic processes. Obesity risk and early pubertal timing might be influenced by similar mechanisms. The thrifty phenotype hypothesis is primarily characterized by experiencing a deprivation of nutrients during gestation paired with an energy rich postnatal environment. The fetal overnutrition hypothesis says that obesity experienced prenatally will be associated with increased lifetime risk of obesity in the offspring. Both hypotheses were tested by examining developmental pathways from genetic and prenatal risk through early growth trajectories (birth to 7 years) to pubertal timing at age 11 years. Participants included 361 children adopted at birth (57% male; 57% non-Hispanic White, 11% Black, 9% Hispanic; adoptive family income Mdn = $70,000-$100,000, birth family income Mdn = < $15,000). Associations between boys' childhood body mass index (BMI) and pubertal timing were confounded by genetics, prenatal risk, and early growth. The thrifty phenotype hypothesis was partially supported for boys' childhood BMI (at ages 4 to 7 years). Both hypotheses were partially supported for girls' childhood BMI but not pubertal timing. A novel Gene × Prenatal Risk interaction showed that genetic risk predicted girls' childhood BMI most strongly at adequate compared with at excessive levels of gestational weight gain. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The biomarker cortisol assesses the impact of biopsychosocial stressors that activate the stress response system. Hair has emerged as a valid and non-invasive means of gauging cumulative cortisol deposited over month-long periods of time. Established protocols for the extraction of hair cortisol are being validated and refined in humans, yet methodological information about hair characteristics on cortisol remains limited. In addition to external hair exposures (e.g. dye, time spent outside), we examined hair categorization or type (e.g. kinky, straight) by extending a hair typing methodology for scientific use that is currently popular among hair care professionals. We then examined the interaction between hair type and race on cortisol levels with a hair questionnaire. Three studies were pooled to investigate how sample weight, hair type, race, heat exposures, and hair treatments impacted cumulative hair cortisol concentrations. Study 1 consisted of Adult Kenyan Medical Workers (N = 44); Study 2 Mexican and Mexican Americans (N = 106); and Study 3 American Youth (N = 107). We found significantly higher cortisol in 5 mg of hair when compared to larger sample weights, and higher cortisol in those who spent more time outdoors. Cortisol concentrations differed between racial groups and varied by hair type; moreover, there were directional differences in cumulative cortisol from straighter to curlier hair types which depended on racial group. In addition to demonstrating the impact of relatively novel control factors like hair sample weight, outdoor exposure, and hair type, the present study illustrates the importance of disentangling hair type and race to understand variability in cumulative hair cortisol. These influences should be included in future studies that measure hair cortisol., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Virtual reality (VR) research probes stress environments that are infeasible to create in the real world. However, because research simulations are applied to narrow populations, it remains unclear if VR simulations can stimulate a broadly applicable stress-response. This systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted on studies using VR stress tasks and biomarkers., Methods: Included papers (N = 52) measured cortisol, heart rate (HR), galvanic skin response (GSR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), parasympathetic activity (RMSSD), sympathovagal balance (LF/HF), and/or salivary alpha-amylase (sAA). Effect sizes (ES) and confidence intervals (CI) were calculated based on standardized mean change of baseline-to-peak biomarker levels., Results: From baseline-to-peak (ES, CI), analyses showed a statistically significant change in cortisol (0.56, 0.28-0.83), HR (0.68, 0.53-0.82), GSR (0.59, 0.36-0.82), SBP (.55, 0.19-0.90), DBP (.64, 0.23-1.05), RSA (-0.59, -0.88 to -0.30), and sAA (0.27, 0.092-0.45). There was no effect for RMSSD and LF/HF., Conclusion: VR stress tasks elicited a varied magnitude of physiological stress reactivity. VR may be an effective tool in stress research., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Early pubertal timing has consistently been associated with internalizing psychopathology in adolescent girls. Here, we aimed to examine whether the association between timing and mental health outcomes varies by measurement of pubertal timing and internalizing psychopathology, differs between adrenarcheal and gonadarcheal processes, and is stronger concurrently or prospectively. We assessed 174 female adolescents (age 10.0-13.0 at Time 1) twice, with an 18-month interval. Participants provided self-reported assessments of depression/anxiety symptoms and pubertal development, subjective pubertal timing, and date of menarche. Their parents/guardians also reported on the adolescent's pubertal development and subjective pubertal timing. We assessed salivary dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), testosterone, and estradiol levels and conducted clinical interviews to determine the presence of case level internalizing disorders. From these data, we computed 11 measures of pubertal timing at both time points, as well as seven measures of internalizing psychopathology, and entered these in a Specification Curve Analysis. Overall, earlier pubertal timing was associated with increased internalizing psychopathology. Associations were stronger prospectively than concurrently, suggesting that timing of early pubertal processes might be especially important for later risk of mental illness. Associations were strongest when pubertal timing was based on the Tanner Stage Line Drawings and when the outcome was case-level Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition ( DSM-IV ) depression or Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) distress disorders. Timing based on hormone levels was not associated with internalizing psychopathology, suggesting that psychosocial mechanisms, captured by timing measures of visible physical characteristics might be more meaningful determinants of internalizing psychopathology than biological ones in adolescent girls. Future research should precisely examine these psychosocial mechanisms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Methods: In a 2-year longitudinal study of 220 families, we examined how youth gender and adrenocortical and parasympathetic activity moderated reciprocal, bidirectional relations between parent and youth anxiety and depression problems., Results: Maternal anxiety predicted subsequent youth anxiety and depression. Maternal depression predicted youth anxiety and, for daughters and youth with low adrenocortical reactivity, youth depression. Youth depression predicted maternal depression only for youth with high adrenocortical reactivity. There were no associations between paternal and youth psychopathology., Discussion: Examining youth gender and psychophysiological characteristics that shape the nature of bidirectional influences may inform efforts to identify families at heightened risk for intergenerational transmission of psychopathology., (© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Background: Well-orchestrated cortisol and DHEA stress responsivity is thought to support efficacious stressor management (i.e., coping) and reduce risk for psychopathology during adolescence. Evidence of these relations, however, is lacking empirically. This longitudinal investigation had three aims: 1) to identify within-adolescent profiles of joint cortisol-DHEA responsivity, 2) examine profiles as prospective predictors of adolescents' later emotional and behavioral difficulties, and 3) examine whether distraction coping helped buffer such prospective risk in each profile., Method: At Time 1, boys (n = 110) and girls (n = 105) between 11 and 16 years of age with varied levels of risk for psychopathology completed a lab-based socio-evaluative stressor and questionnaires (e.g., coping, internalizing and externalizing problems). Emotional and behavioral adjustment was assessed again at Time 2 (2 years later)., Results: Multi-trajectory modeling of adolescents' cortisol and DHEA within the context of the stressor revealed three groups: Normative (n = 107; 49.8%), Hyperresponsive (n = 64; 29.8%), Hyporesponsive (n = 44; 20.5%). Relative to Normative, Hyperresponsive and Hyporesponsive adolescents were more and less advanced in pubertal status, respectively. Hyperresponsive adolescents, but not Hyporesponsive, reported greater emotional and behavioral problems at Time 2, relative to Normative adolescents. Links between distraction coping and Time 2 adjustment varied across the groups. Specifically, distraction coping was associated with fewer Time 2 emotional and behavioral problems for Normative adolescents. However, the converse was true for Hyporesponsive adolescents, with distraction associated with greater Time 2 emotional and behavioral problems. Distraction was not associated with Time 2 emotional and behavioral problems for Hyperresponsive adolescents (i.e., elevated levels irrespective of distraction coping utilization)., Conclusion: Our results strengthen inference about the role neuroendocrine coordination plays in risk for psychopathology. Findings also help to clarify inconsistent distraction coping-psychopathology linkages, illustrating different patterns of cortisol-DHEA responsivity that support as well as thwart the use of this potentially efficacious strategy., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

The inclusion of music into the treatment plan for persons with Parkinson's disease (PD) may be a viable strategy to target multiple motor symptoms. However, potential mechanisms to explain why music has an impact on multiple motor symptoms in persons with PD remain understudied. The purpose of this study was to examine the acute effects of 1 h of group therapeutic singing (GTS) on physiological measures of stress and clinical motor symptoms in persons with PD. We posit that improvement in motor symptoms after GTS may be related to stress reduction. Seventeen participants with PD completed 1 h of GTS and eight participants completed 1 h of a quiet reading (control session). Cortisol was collected via passive drool immediately before and after the singing and control session. The Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) Part-III (motor examination) was also video-recorded immediately before and after the singing and control session and scored by two raters masked to time and condition. Secondary outcome measures for quality of life, depression, and mood were collected. Results revealed no significant change in cortisol or motor UPDRS scores, as well as no significant relationship between cortisol and motor UPDRS scores. There was a trend for the singing group to report feeling less sad compared to the control group after the 1-h session (effect size = 0.86), and heart rate increased in the singing group while heart rate decreased in the control group after the 1-h session. These results suggest that an acute session of GTS is not unduly stressful and promotes the use of GTS for persons with PD. Multiple mechanisms may underlie the benefits of GTS for persons with PD. Further exploring potential mechanisms by which singing improves motor symptoms in persons with PD will provide greater insight on the therapeutic use of music for persons with PD., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Stegemöller, Zaman, Shelley, Patel, Kouzi and Shirtcliff.)

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ (ABCD) Study is an ongoing, diverse, longitudinal, and multi-site study of 11,880 adolescents in the United States. The ABCD Study provides open access to data about pubertal development at a large scale, and this article is a researcher's guide that both describes its pubertal variables and outlines recommendations for use. These considerations are contextualized with reference to cross-sectional empirical analyses of pubertal measures within the baseline ABCD dataset by Herting, Uban, and colleagues (2021). We discuss strategies to capitalize on strengths, mitigate weaknesses, and appropriately interpret study limitations for researchers using pubertal variables within the ABCD dataset, with the aim of building toward a robust science of adolescent development., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Cheng, Magis-Weinberg, Guazzelli Williamson, Ladouceur, Whittle, Herting, Uban, Byrne, Barendse, Shirtcliff and Pfeifer.)

Adolescents experience profound neuroendocrine changes, including hormone "coupling" between cortisol, testosterone, and dehydroepiandrosterone. Emerging research has only begun to elucidate the role of hormone coupling, its genetic and environmental etiology, and the extent to which coupling is impacted by gender, puberty, and family context. We included measures on parent and child mental health, parenting stress, and family conflict of 444 twin pairs and their parents across two timepoints, when youth were on average 8 and 13 years old, respectively. Structural equation models examined the impact of family context effects on coupling during adolescence. Biometric twin models were then used to probe additive genetic, shared, and non-shared environmental effects on hormone coupling. Hormones were more tightly coupled for females than males, and coupling was sensitive to parental depression and co-twin psychopathology symptoms and stress exposure in females. The association between family context and coupling varied across specific neuroendocrine measures and was largely distinct from pubertal maturation. Biometric models revealed robust shared and non-shared environmental influences on coupling. We found that family antecedents modify the strength of coupling. Environmental influences account for much of the variation on coupling during puberty. Gender differences were found in genetic influences on coupling., (© 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Understanding the developmental timing of stress exposure may help inform mechanisms underlying how stress "gets under the skin" and influences the stress response system, including the HPA axis and its end-product cortisol. Early adversity may be particularly detrimental; however, it is difficult to disentangle the timing of adversity from its cumulative burden because there is typically high continuity between early and later adversity. Moreover, context and the different stressors inherent in various contexts may interact with stress exposure to influence psychophysiological functioning. To address this issue, we examined adolescents who had been reared in institutions and suffered neglect or social deprivation ranging from approximately six months to several years of life prior to adoption into U.S. homes. We focused on the stress hormone cortisol because it can reflect continued regulatory problems in youth, even years after youth transition to typical homes. We examined cortisol morning levels and diurnal rhythms across multiple contexts (home, school, lab) on 5 separate days in 41 post-institutionalized youth and 78 comparison youth. Employing hierarchical linear modeling, we found that when assessed in the lab, post-institutionalized (PI) youth displayed lower morning cortisol levels and flatter diurnal slopes than the control youth. Yet at home, PI youth displayed higher morning cortisol levels than the control youth. In addition to group effects, we also examined severity of early adversity and found that PI kids who had endured the most severe early adversity displayed lower home cortisol levels than controls. No significant predictors of diurnal cortisol on school days were identified. These data fit with the notion that the HPA axis is impacted by early adversity, even years after adoption, and with emerging theories that postulate that stress physiology calibrates within youth to help them adapt to their context. In the case of severe early adversity, the cost of such adaptation may not be desirable. It also highlights the important role of context when assessing HPA axis activity, particularly in post-institutionalized youth., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The literature on hormone changes in pregnancy has focused largely on cortisol, and changes in sample average concentrations. Within-person changes and variability in hormone concentrations are less commonly reported, particularly for sex hormones, and especially measured in hair. Using a prospective sample of pregnant women and a non-pregnant comparison group, we examined changes in five steroid hormones in hair. Non-pregnant women were recruited from the same area with parallel procedures and assessment timeline. Participants include 68 women (34 pregnant, average age = 29.14, and 34 non-pregnant; average age = 27.18) who were predominately non-Hispanic White (83%), and above the 2020 poverty line (75%). Pregnant women provided 3cm hair samples and completed questionnaires three times during pregnancy: 1) at 12 weeks, 2) at 26 weeks, and 3) at 38 weeks. Non-pregnant women provided 3cm hair samples and completed questionnaires three times, at baseline, 14 weeks later, and 12 weeks after that to mirror the assessment schedule of the pregnant group. There was clear evidence that progesterone was higher initially and increased dramatically across pregnancy whereas non-pregnant patterns showed no systematic change. There was suggestive evidence that cortisol and estradiol increased over pregnancy and in non-pregnant women similarly across the same time course. There was suggestive evidence that DHEA decreased across pregnancy, particularly early in pregnancy, differently from patterns in non-pregnant women over the same time course. Most importantly, there was substantial variability of hormone concentrations and many different within-person patterns of changes in these hormones over time, with little evidence of systematic change or stability within-individuals. Moving beyond discussing sample averages to including within-person and non-linear changes in studies of hormones-behavior associations during pregnancy is an important future direction for further investigation.

The present study systematically reviewed 56 articles that assessed hair cortisol concentrations during pregnancy collected from PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science on 8/9/19 and updated on 6/29/20. Our goals were to establish reference ranges by trimester based on published studies. The majority of any given sample (e.g., 70 %, the range of -1SD to +1SD) is expected to fall between 0 and 34.15 pg/mg in trimester 1 and 2, and between 8.59 and 44 pg/mg in trimester 3, with very wide ranges (e.g., values of >250 pg/mg) and substantially higher values (e.g., averages of 200's-300's reaching as high as 768 pg/mg) coming out of one specific lab. Delineating a reference range for hair cortisol concentrations across pregnancy is challenging because of known factors like differences in values returned by different laboratories and assay types. We observed inconsistency in descriptions of the data and data preparation steps post-assay. Key findings include that only half of the studies examining all three trimesters showed a constant increase in mean levels (most retrospectively assessed via segmenting), with considerable variability in patterns of change. None of the studies reported individual patterns of change. Examining within-person changes are an important next step for the field. We conclude that researchers should more clearly report decisions around outliers, units, and specifics of data transformations in the future in order to improve our ability to compare findings across studies, to understand differences in HCC values reported, and potentially to understand differences in reported associations of HCC with other phenotypes in the literature., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Latinx adolescents are at a disproportional risk for poor sexual and reproductive health outcomes (STIs, adolescent pregnancy) compared to other ethnic groups. They also report high rates of alcohol and drug use that are similar to non-Hispanic White youth. The hormonal underpinnings of the emergence of sex and substance use behaviors among Latinx adolescents remain understudied however. Pubertal shifts in motivation and reward-seeking in social situations are closely tied to the emergence of risky sexual and substance use behaviors. The experience of developing earlier or later than same age peers may increase stress (cortisol) reactivity during social evaluative situations leading to more risky behavior. Further, testosterone can be responsive to social evaluative threat (SET) and is linked to status-seeking behavior, including risk-taking. The current study sought to unravel the complex relationship between cortisol and testosterone responsivity to social evaluative threat, pubertal status, and the emergence of sex and drug use among US-born Mexican-origin youth growing up in an agricultural community. Mexican American 14-year olds (N = 234, 54% female) from the Center for Health Assessment of Mothers and Children (CHAMACOS) participated in the Trier Social Stress Test. Cortisol and testosterone were assayed from saliva. At 16, youth reported on age at vaginal and oral sex initiation, and alcohol and marijuana use initiation. Hierarchical regressions examined cortisol and testosterone reactivity, and pubertal status within each sex to predict the onset of these risky behaviors. Results indicated that boys who were less developed than their same-aged peers or with lower testosterone reactivity and elevated cortisol reactivity to the TSST reported the earliest sex and substance use initiation. For girls, higher cortisol reactivity predicted earlier alcohol use initiation, and higher testosterone reactivity predicted earlier oral sex. Our results suggests it is important for health care providers to not overlook Latinx boys who may look younger in discussions about mitigating risk. Latinx girls under increased stress may be more likely to try to self-medicate with alcohol, and potentially other drugs., (Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

There is robust evidence that early poverty is associated with poor developmental outcomes, including impaired emotion regulation and depression. However, the specific mechanisms that mediate this risk are less clear. Here we test the hypothesis that one pathway involves hormone mechanisms (testosterone and DHEA) that contribute to disruption of hippocampal brain development, which in turn contributes to perturbed emotion regulation and subsequent risk for depression. To do so, we used data from 167 children participating in the Preschool Depression Study, a longitudinal study that followed children from preschool (ages 3 to 5 y) to late adolescence, and which includes prospective assessments of poverty in preschool, measures of testosterone, DHEA, and hippocampal volume across school age and adolescence, and measures of emotion regulation and depression in adolescence. Using multilevel modeling and linear regression, we found that early poverty predicted shallower increases of testosterone, but not DHEA, across development, which in turn predicted shallower trajectories of hippocampal development. Further, we found that early poverty predicted both impaired emotion regulation and depression. The relationship between early poverty and self-reported depression in adolescence was explained by serial mediation through testosterone to hippocampus to emotion dysregulation. There were no significant interactions with sex. These results provide evidence about a hormonal pathway by which early poverty may contribute to disrupted brain development and risk for mental health problems later in life. Identification of such pathways provide evidence for potential points of intervention that might help mitigate the impact of early adversity on brain development., Competing Interests: Competing interest statement: J.L.L. receives royalties from Guilford Press.

The marked increase in adolescent reward-seeking behavior has important implications for adaptive and maladaptive development. Reward-seeking is linked to increased testosterone and increased neural responses to reward cues. How acute testosterone changes modulate neural reward systems remains unclear. Based on previous work, adolescents, particularly males, showing an increase in endogenous testosterone reactivity were hypothesized to show increased neural response to reward in ventromedial prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum, and posterior cingulate cortex. Sixty-one healthy adolescents aged 10-13 (38 female, mean age = 12.01 [SD = 1.00]) completed a reward-cue processing task during fMRI. Saliva samples to be assayed for testosterone were collected immediately before and after scanning. Acute testosterone changes were not associated with variation in behavioral performance. Within ventromedial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices, increased acute testosterone change was associated with reduced discrimination between rewarded and un-rewarded trials. Results suggest that increasing levels of testosterone may result in reduced attention to/salience of task irrelevant information. In contrast to previous studies that found a positive association between testosterone and neural response to reward, the reward information in the current paradigm was irrelevant to success in task performance. These results are consistent with theoretical conceptualization of testosterone's role in reproduction, which involves a shift in salience to short-term relative to long-term goals. These data further emphasized the need to consider context in the study of hormones; specific behaviors will be up- or down-regulated by a hormone based on the fit of the behavior with the broader contextual goal being orchestrated by the hormone., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest None., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Despite recent studies linking pubertal processes to brain development, as well as research demonstrating the importance of both pubertal and neurodevelopmental processes for adolescent mental health, there is limited knowledge of the full pathways and mechanisms behind the emergence of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders in adolescence. The Transitions in Adolescent Girls (TAG) study aims to understand the complex relationships between pubertal development, brain structure and connectivity, the behavioral and neural correlates of social and self-perception processes, and adolescent mental health in female adolescents., Methods: The TAG study includes 174 female adolescents aged 10.0 to 13.0 years, recruited from the local community in Lane County, Oregon, USA. The participants, along with a parent/guardian, will complete three waves of assessment over the course of 3 years; the third wave is currently underway. Each wave includes collection of four saliva samples (one per week) and one hair sample for the assessment of hormone levels and immune factors; an MRI session including structural, diffusion, resting-state functional and task-based functional scans; the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS), a diagnostic interview on current and lifetime mental health; production of a short self-narrative video; and measurement of height, weight, and waist circumference. The functional MRI tasks include a self-evaluation paradigm and a self-disclosure paradigm. In addition, adolescents and their parents/guardians complete a number of surveys to report on the adolescent's pubertal development, mental health, social environment and life events; adolescents also report on various indices of self-perception and social-emotional functioning., Discussion: The knowledge gained from this study will include developmental trajectories of pubertal, neurological, and social processes and their roles as mechanisms in predicting emergence of mental illness in female adolescents. This knowledge will help identify modifiable, developmentally specific risk factors as targets for early intervention and prevention efforts., (Copyright © 2020 Barendse, Vijayakumar, Byrne, Flannery, Cheng, Flournoy, Nelson, Cosme, Mobasser, Chavez, Hval, Brady, Nadel, Helzer, Shirtcliff, Allen and Pfeifer.)

Prediction errors (PEs) encode representations of rewarding and aversive experiences and are critical to reinforcement processing. The feedback-related negativity (FRN), a component of the event-related potential (ERP) that is sensitive to valenced feedback, is believed to reflect PE signals. Reinforcement is also studied using frontal midline theta (FMΘ) activity, which peaks around the same time as the FRN and increases in response to unexpected events compared to expected events. We recorded EEG while participants completed a monetary incentive delay (MID) task that included positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement conditions with multiple levels of the outcome, as well as control conditions that had no reinforcement value. Despite the overlap of FRN and FMΘ, these measures indexed dissociable cognitive processing. The FRN was sensitive to errors in both positive and negative reinforcement but not in control conditions, while frontal theta instead was sensitive to outcomes in positive reinforcement and control conditions, but not in negative reinforcement conditions. The FRN was sensitive to the point level of feedback in both positive and negative reinforcement, while FMΘ was not influenced by the feedback point level. Results are consistent with recent results indicating that the FRN is influenced by unsigned PEs (i.e., a salience signal). In contrast, we suggest that our findings for frontal theta are consistent with hypotheses suggesting that the neural generators of FMΘ are sensitive to both negative cues and the need for control., (Copyright © 2020 Rawls, Miskovic, Moody, Lee, Shirtcliff and Lamm.)

Birth weight (BW) at delivery is an important developmental milestone indicative of prenatal conditions and portends of the postnatal growth trajectory that will occur during infancy and childhood. Previous research has documented that there are also many physiological and health consequences of being born either small-for-gestational age (SGA) or large-for-gestational age (LGA). Analyses of breeding animals have demonstrated further that a gravid female exerts a strong influence on the size of her infant by term, and this permissiveness or constraint over fetal growth can be transmitted from mothers to their daughters. The following research tested additional hypotheses about matrilineal effects on BW by examining records from a large breeding colony of rhesus monkeys across multiple generations. The analyses utilized BW of 1710 infant monkeys obtained over 4 decades. In addition to determining the association between the birth weight (BW) of a female and her own infants birthed later as a mother, the multi-generational transmission of birth size from a grandmother through her daughters to the next generation was examined. Other maternal influences were evident, including a progressive increase in infant BW with parity, which synergized with matrilineal effects across a female's reproductive life. In addition, our modeling indicated that if an infant's BW was discordant-a SGA female birthing a larger daughter-the discrepant fetal growth pattern could be accentuated in the next generation. Overall, the findings confirm that the size of an infant at term is significantly influenced by a type of gestational imprinting on daughters during the prenatal period, which then continues to shape birth outcomes in subsequent generations., Competing Interests: CONFLICT OF INTEREST None of the authors have any COI to disclose. The authors do not have any conflicts of interest to disclose.

Parent-child physiological attunement, particularly during stressful situations, appears adaptive as shared stress reactivity may promote dyadic engagement. Romantic partners eventually replace parents as the primary support figure, yet it remains unclear whether romantic partners buffer physiological stress or display physiological attunement as most studies on adults examine attunement during conflict paradigms. The present study examined physiological attunement in 63 emerging adult romantic partner dyads (one partner was the active participant, the other the observer) during the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST). Heart rate (HR) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were continuously monitored across the visit. Repeated saliva samples were assayed for cortisol. Physiological attunement was operationalized as a correlation in biomarkers between the TSST participant and their partner; sex, social support, and physical proximity were examined as moderators. We then compared the biomarker profiles of partnered-TSST participants to individuals who participated in the TSST solo (n = 63) to determine if partner presence buffered stress biomarker reactivity during the TSST. RSA attunement between partners was found but was not further moderated by social support or sex. Adrenocortical attunement was moderated, such that lower social support and increased proximity resulted in higher attunement. HR attunement was higher when the participant was male and when partners were in close physical proximity. Compared to TSST solo, romantic partner presence increased participant cortisol levels and altered HR reactivity, suggesting that emerging adult romantic partners do not buffer physiological stress reactivity. Future research should examine whether physiological attunement and partner presence is protective in more established relationships.

Affective neuroscience research suggests that maturational changes in reward circuitry during adolescence present opportunities for new learning, but likely also contribute to increases in vulnerability for psychiatric disorders such as depression and substance abuse. Basic research in animal models and human neuroimaging has made progress in understanding the normal development of reward circuitry in adolescence, yet, few functional neuroimaging studies have examined puberty-related influences on the functioning of this circuitry. The goal of this study was to address this gap by examining the extent to which striatal activation and cortico-striatal functional connectivity to cues predicting upcoming rewards would be positively associated with pubertal status and levels of pubertal hormones (dehydroepiandrosterone, testosterone, estradiol). Participants included 79 adolescents (10-13 year olds; 47 girls) varying in pubertal status who performed a novel reward cue processing task during fMRI. Pubertal maturation was assessed using sex-specific standardized composite measures based on Tanner staging (self-report and clinical assessment) and scores from the Pubertal Development Scale. These composite measures were computed to index overall pubertal maturation as well as maturation of the adrenal and gonadal axes separately for boys and girls. Basal levels of circulating pubertal hormones were measured using immunoassays from three samples collected weekly upon awakening across a three-week period. Results indicated greater striatal activation and functional connectivity between nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) to reward cue (vs. no reward cue) on this task. Also, girls with higher levels of estradiol showed reduced activation in left and right caudate and greater NAcc-putamen connectivity. Girls with higher levels of testosterone showed greater NAcc connectivity with the anterior cingulate cortex and the insula. There were no significant associations in boys. Findings suggest that patterns of activation and connectivity in cortico-striatal regions are associated with reward cue processing, particularly in girls. Longitudinal follow-up neuroimaging studies are needed to fully characterize puberty-specific effects on the development of these neural regions and how such changes may contribute to pathways of risk or resilience in adolescence., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Sensation-seeking (SS) involves the tendency to pursue exciting activities, potentially including risky behaviors (e.g., substance use, risky sexual behavior). Testosterone is associated with cortisol, SS, and autonomic nervous system (ANS) functioning. Testosterone reactivity/recovery during sky-diving and its relationship to cortisol response, ANS response and SS were examined. Forty-four participants provided reactive saliva samples and autonomic activity data before, during and after sky-diving and as well as basal day saliva samples. Testosterone reactivity/recovery to skydiving was significantly greater than basal day measurements. Testosterone responsivity to skydiving was predicted by increased cortisol, increased sympathetic activity (heart rate) and reduced parasympathetic activity (RMSSD). Independent of physiological effects, increased SS predicted testosterone responsivity to skydiving. These data suggest that testosterone reactivity, and its relationship to ANS responsivity, may be associated with pleasurable responses to risky/intense situations. These data may be useful in developing novel intervention strategies for risky behaviors., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Saliva is a common noninvasive biofluid for measuring stress and sex hormones, yet one pressing limitation is that salivary hormones fluctuate momentarily, daily, and (for girls) across the menstrual cycle. Hair steroid assays are thought to provide a cumulative index which collapses across hormonal variability, potentially eliminating the confound of daily and menstrual cyclicity and thereby reflecting individual differences in average hormone levels. Here we seek to validate a hair bioassay methodology and test whether hair androgens accurately measure long-term, stable androgen levels in emerging adult women across two menstrual cycles., Methods: Hair samples were collected at the end of each menstrual cycle for two cycles, and saliva samples were collected in the morning once per week across two menstrual cycles (N = 11 women). Hair samples were segmented by 1 cm for the first 4 cm to reflect the hormone levels of the past four serial months. Hair samples were assayed using commercially-available enzyme-immuno-assays for testosterone and DHEA., Results: Hair androgen concentrations were significantly correlated with averaged saliva hormone levels (DHEA: r = .75, p < .05; Testosterone: r = .67, p < .05). With respect to hair hormone stability, there were significant correlations for almost all the pairs of two 1 cm hair segments collected in two months that corresponded to the same time period. Hair androgens in one segment were significantly correlated with those in next segment. Regarding salivary androgen stability, the intra-class correlation across the weekly saliva samples indicated that for DHEA 59% of the total variance was within person and 41% was between person; and for testosterone 91% of the total variance was between person, and only 9% within person., Discussion: Results suggest that a one-time measure of hair provides a valid and reliable estimate of average steroid levels across two months. Moreover, whereas saliva measures of androgen levels capture week-to-week fluctuations in steroids, hair samples provide information on individual differences in average exposure to steroids, across long periods of time, such as months. Results are encouraging that hair DHEA and testosterone reflects the cumulative hormonal concentration and can be used as a stable hormonal index. Results also indicate that it is feasible to collect the first 3-4 centimeters of hair for studies of stable hormone levels., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Decades of puberty research have yielded key scientific discoveries. Building on the field's rich history, we highlight four understudied populations: youth of color, boys, sexual minority youth, and gender minority youth. We explore why scientific study has been slow to evolve in these groups and propose paths forward for exciting new work. For ethnically racially diverse youth, we discuss the need to incorporate culture and context. For boys, we highlight methodological issues and challenges of mapping existing conceptual models onto boys. For sexual and gender minority youth, we discuss unique challenges during puberty and suggest ways to better capture their experiences. With an eye toward a new era, we make recommendations for next steps and underscore the importance of transdisciplinary research., (© 2019 Society for Research on Adolescence.)

Scarce research has examined stress responsivity among Latino youths, and no studies have focused on the role of acculturation in shaping cortisol stress response in this population. This study assessed Mexican American adolescents' Mexican and Anglo cultural orientations and examined prospective associations between their patterns of bicultural orientation and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal cortisol reactivity to an adapted Trier Social Stress Test. The sample included 264 youths from a longitudinal birth cohort study who completed the Trier Social Stress Test and provided saliva samples at age 14. The youths completed assessments of cultural orientation at age 12, and family conflict and familism at age 14. Analyses testing the interactive effects of Anglo and Mexican orientation showed significant associations with cortisol responsivity, including the reactivity slope, peak levels, and recovery, but these associations were not mediated by family conflict nor familism values. Findings revealed that bicultural youth (high on both Anglo and Mexican orientations) showed an expected pattern of high cortisol responsivity, which may be adaptive in the context of a strong acute stressor, whereas individuals endorsing only high levels of Anglo orientation had a blunted cortisol response. Findings are discussed in relation to research on biculturalism and the trade-offs and potential recalibration of a contextually responsive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis for acculturating adolescents.