Longitudinal associations between hair cortisol, PTSD symptoms, and sleep disturbances in a sample of firefighters with duty-related trauma exposure

Several studies have found evidence of altered cortisol levels in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Based on these findings, it is assumed that these patients may show signs of cortisol dysregulation after trauma. Posttrauma cortisol levels are thus considered a potential biomarker of PTSD. However, longitudinal studies using indicators of long-term cortisol secretion such as hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) are scarce. The current study investigated prospective associations between HCC and PTSD symptoms in a sample of Dutch firefighters taking into account varying levels of work-related trauma severity. In addition, we assessed posttraumatic sleep disturbances as a secondary outcome measure to investigate whether effects generalize to this frequent comorbidity of PTSD. Three hundred seventy-one Dutch firefighters with a mean of 14.01 years of work experience were included in the analyses. Baseline assessment included the collection of hair samples and the measurement of work-related trauma severity, PTSD symptoms, and sleep disturbances. PTSD symptoms and sleep disturbance were re-assessed after six and twelve months. Multilevel analyses indicate a significant positive correlation between HCC and baseline PTSD symptoms in those with average or above-average work-related trauma severity. A similar pattern was evident for posttraumatic sleep disturbances at baseline. Moreover, higher HCC predicted more posttraumatic sleep disturbances after 6 months in participants with above-average work-related trauma severity. No other associations emerged for PTSD symptoms or posttraumatic sleep disturbances at six or twelve months. As such, our study supports the existence of a cross-sectional association between HCC and trauma symptoms, which may vary for different levels of subjective trauma severity. The longitudinal stability of this association should be reinvestigated by future research

Accelerated trace eyeblink conditioning after cortisol IV-infusion

Impairing effects of cortisol on learning performance have been shown in human trace eyeblink conditioning As the effect is observed from 30 min to hours after administration a genomic action of cortisol is assumed Here we report rapid cortisol effects that were observed during the first 10 min after cortisol administration in humans Young healthy males (n = 24) received the cortisol synthesis inhibitor metyrapone (1 5 g per os) to avoid Interference of the endogenous pulsatile secretion of cortisol Next 2 mg cortisol or placebo was infused intravenously immediately before the trace conditioning task The probability of the conditioned eyeblink responses was assessed electromyographically during the trace eyeblink conditioning task (unconditioned stimulus corneal air puff 10 psi 50 ms conditioned stimulus binaural pure tone 75 dB 1000 Hz 400 ms empty interval between CS and US 550 ms) Cortisol resulted in a faster increase of conditioning (p = 02) reaching a comparable level to placebo later on This result extends the well-known effects of stress on the quality and amount of learning by showing that cortisol also affects the speed of learning We propose that cortisol accelerates trace eyeblink conditioning via a fast non-genomic mechanism This fast action of cortisol is part of the adaptive strategy during the early stress response (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc All rights reservedStress hormones and brain functio