Psychoneuroendocrinology
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Psychoneuroendocrinology · Nov 2014
Testosterone responses to competition predict decreased trust ratings of emotionally neutral faces.
A wealth of evidence has linked individual differences in testosterone (T) to social, cognitive, and behavioral processes related to human dominance. Moreover, recent evidence indicates that a single administration of T reduces interpersonal trust in healthy young women. ⋯ Results indicated that a rise in T predicted a decrease in trust ratings in men, but not women. These findings provide further support for the idea that competition-induced fluctuations in T may serve to modulate ongoing and/or future social behavior.
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Psychoneuroendocrinology · Nov 2014
Post-stress rumination predicts HPA axis responses to repeated acute stress.
Failure of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis to habituate to repeated stress exposure is related with adverse health outcomes, but our knowledge of predictors of non-habituation is limited. Rumination, defined as repetitive and unwanted past-centered negative thinking, is related with exaggerated HPA axis stress responses and poor health outcomes. The aim of this study was to test whether post-stress rumination was related with non-habituation of cortisol to repeated stress exposure. ⋯ Post-stress rumination after the first TSST was associated with greater cortisol reactivity after the initial stress test (r=0.45, p<0.05) and with increased cortisol responses to the second TSST (r=0.51, p<0.01), indicating non-habituation, independently of age, sex, depressive symptoms, perceived life stress, and trait rumination. In summary, results showed that rumination after stress predicted non-habituation of HPA axis responses. This finding implicates rumination as one possible mechanism mediating maladaptive stress response patterns, and it might also offer a pathway through which rumination might lead to negative health outcomes.
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Psychoneuroendocrinology · Sep 2014
Randomized Controlled TrialEffects of 24 h working on-call on psychoneuroendocrine and oculomotor function: a randomized cross-over trial.
On-call duty (OCD) is frequently associated with health and safety risks for both physicians and patients. The lack of studies conducted in clinical care environments and the ongoing public dialogue concerning OCD led to a detailed investigation of a working schedule including sleep fragmentation and extended work hours. ⋯ 24 h OCD alters both, the sympathetic-adrenomedullary system as well as the hypothalamic pituitary-adrenocortical axis. Moreover, physicians' emotional state, cognitive and oculomotor performance seems to be influenced independently from sleep interruptions. The discrepancy between subjective feeling and objective cognitive impairments pose a risk for performing complex manual and cognitive tasks. Hence, our findings argue against an oversimplified interpretation of alterations in the physicians' psychoneuroendocrine structure in terms of impaired mood and neurocognitive deterioration combined with up-/dysregulated stress axes associated with OCD as a consequence of sleep deprivation.
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Psychoneuroendocrinology · Sep 2014
PAC1 receptor antagonism in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) attenuates the endocrine and behavioral consequences of chronic stress.
Chronic or repeated stressor exposure can induce a number of maladaptive behavioral and physiological consequences and among limbic structures, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) has been implicated in the integration and interpretation of stress responses. Previous work has demonstrated that chronic variate stress (CVS) exposure in rodents increases BNST pituitary adenylate cyclase activating polypeptide (PACAP, Adcyap1) and PAC1 receptor (Adcyap1r1) transcript expression, and that acute BNST PACAP injections can stimulate anxiety-like behavior. Here we show that chronic stress increases PACAP expression selectively in the oval nucleus of the dorsolateral BNST in patterns distinct from those for corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH). ⋯ Conversely, chronic inhibition of BNST PACAP signaling by continuous infusion with the PAC1 receptor antagonist PACAP(6-38) during the week of CVS attenuated these stress-induced behavioral responses and changes in weight gain. BNST PACAP signaling stimulated the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and heightened corticosterone release; further, BNST PACAP(6-38) administration blocked corticosterone release in a sensitized stress model. In aggregate with recent associations of PACAP/PAC1 receptor dysregulation with altered stress responses including post-traumatic stress disorder, these data suggest that BNST PACAP/PAC1 receptor signaling mechanisms may coordinate the behavioral and endocrine consequences of stress.
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Psychoneuroendocrinology · Jul 2014
The role of acute cortisol and DHEAS in predicting acute and chronic PTSD symptoms.
Decreased activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in response to stress is suspected to be a vulnerability factor for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Previous studies showed inconsistent findings regarding the role of cortisol in predicting PTSD. In addition, no prospective studies have examined the role of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), or its sulfate form DHEAS, and the cortisol-to-DHEA(S) ratio in predicting PTSD. In this study, we tested whether acute plasma cortisol, DHEAS and the cortisol-to-DHEAS ratio predicted PTSD symptoms at 6 weeks and 6 months post-trauma. ⋯ Our study provides important new evidence on the crucial role of the HPA-axis in response to trauma by showing that acute cortisol and DHEAS levels predict PTSD symptoms in survivors of recent trauma.