Distinct trajectories of cortisol response to prolonged acute stress are linked to affective responses and hippocampal gray matter volume in healthy females

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Roee Admon, University of Haifa; Michael T. Treadway, Emory University; Linda Valeri, McLean Hospital; Malavika Mehta, McLean Hospital; Samuel Douglas, McLean Hospital; Diego A. Pizzagalli, McLean Hospital
• Language: English
• Date: 2017-08-16
• Publisher: Society for Neuroscience
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2017 the authors.
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1175-17.2017
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Journal of Neuroscience Nursing
• Volume: 37
• Issue: 33
• Start Page: 7994
• End Page: 8002
• Grant/Funding Information: M.T.T. was supported by the National Institutes of Health (Grant K99 MH102355).; This work was support by the National Institutes of Mental Health–National Institutes of Health (Grants R01 and R37 MH068376, MH068376-09S1 to D.A.P.).; L.V. was supported by Harvard Catalyst Biostatistics Consulting for Harvard Medical School-affiliated researchers.; R.A. was supported by the Israeli Council for Higher Education (Alon Scholarship).
• Keywords: HPA; Organ Size; cortisol; Female; Acute Disease; Cold Temperature; mood; Gray Matter; Hydrocortisone; stress; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Humans; Saliva; Time Factors; Hippocampus; hippocampus; Stress, Psychological
• Research Categories: Psychology, General; Biology, Neuroscience

Abstract

The development of robust laboratory procedures for acute stress induction over the last decades has greatly advanced our understanding of stress responses in humans and their underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Nevertheless, attempts to uncover linear relationships among endocrine, neural, and affective responses to stress have generally yielded inconsistent results. Here, 79 healthy females completed a well established laboratory procedure of acute stress induction that was modified to prolong its effect. Endocrinological and subjective affect assessments revealed stress-induced increases in cortisol release and negative affect that persisted 65 and 100 min after stress onset, respectively, confirming a relatively prolonged acute stress induction. Applying latent class linear mixed modeling on individuals’ patterns of cortisol responses identified three distinct trajectories of cortisol response: the hyper-response (n = 10), moderate-response (n=21), and mild-response (n=48) groups. Notably, whereas all three groups exhibited a significant stress-induced increase in cortisol release and negative affect, the hyper-response and mild-response groups both reported more negative affect relative to the moderate-response group. Structural MRI revealed no group differences in hippocampal and amygdala volumes, yet a continuous measure of cortisol response (area under the curve) showed that high and low levels of stress-induced cortisol release were associated with less hippocampal gray matter volume compared with moderate cortisol release. Together, these results suggest that distinct trajectories of cortisol responsetoprolongedacute stressamonghealthy femalesmaynotbecapturedbyconventional linear analyses; instead, quadratic relationsmay better describe links between cortisol response to stress and affective responses, as well as hippocampal structural variability.