• Yipeng Ren, Yadong Liu, Xiaolin Zhao, Weiyu Hu, Zhenni Wei, Zihan Tang, Jiahao Luo, Mengyi Li, Kaige Guo, Yan Wu, and Juan Yang.
• Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China; Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (Ministry of Education), Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
• Neuroscience. 2023 May 1; 517: 616961-69.

AbstractPrevious studies revealed that high long-term hypothalamic-pituitaryadrenal (HPA) axis activity measured by the hair cortisol concentrations predicts lower acute stress cortisol response and reported the influences of hair cortisol on brain activity during acute stress exposure. However, considering that long-term HPA axis activity has a close relationship with the brain's resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC), the current study aimed to explore the role of RSFC between limbic and salience network in this relationship. Seventy-seven healthy participants underwent resting-state imaging scans before performing the acute ScanSTRESS task. Saliva samples were collected to assess the levels of acute stress salivary cortisol. Hair samples were also collected, and the corticosteroid concentration extracted from these samples were used as a biomarker of long-term HPA axis activity. High hair cortisone (HairE) levels predicted lower acute stress cortisol response. Moreover, high HairE levels were significantly correlated with enhanced RSFC between limbic and salience networks, while RSFC was negatively associated with acute stress cortisol response. Importantly, the RSFC between left insula and left parahippocampus mediated the association between HairE and acute cortisol stress response. Taken together, this study uncovers the important role of RSFC between salience and limbic networks in the long-term relationship between HairE and acute cortisol response and contributes to a deeper understanding of the individual differences in acute stress response.Copyright © 2023 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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