Overestimating Self-Blame for Stressful Life Events and Adolescents’ Latent Trait Cortisol (LTC): The Moderating Role of Parental Warmth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence

Cognitive interpretations of stressful events impact their implications for physiological stress processes. However, whether such interpretations are related to trait cortisol—an indicator of individual differences in stress physiology—is unknown. In 112 early adolescent girls (M age = 12.39 years), this study examined the association between self-blame estimates for past year events and latent trait cortisol, and whether maternal warmth moderated effects. Overestimating self-blame (versus objective indices) for independent (uncontrollable) events was associated with lower latent trait cortisol, and maternal warmth moderated the effect of self-blame estimates on latent trait cortisol for each dependent (at least partially controllable) and interpersonal events. Implications for understanding the impact of cognitive and interpersonal factors on trait cortisol during early adolescence are discussed

Validating New Summary Indices for the Childhood Trauma Interview: Associations with First Onsets of Major Depressive Disorder and Anxiety Disorders

Childhood and adolescent adversity is of great interest in relation to risk for psychopathology, and interview measures of adversity are thought to be more reliable and valid than their questionnaire counterparts. One interview measure, the Childhood Trauma Interview (CTI; Fink et al., 1995), has been positively evaluated relative to similar measures, but there are some psychometric limitations to an existing scoring approach that limit the full potential of this measure. We propose several new summary indices for the CTI that permit examination of different types of adversity and different developmental periods. Our approach creates several summary indices: one sums the severity scores of adversities endorsed; another utilizes the number of minor and major (moderate to severe) adversities. The new indices were examined in association with first onsets of major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety disorders across a 5-year period using annual clinical diagnostic interviews (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM–IV–TR). Summary scores derived with the previously used approach were also examined for comparison. Data on 332 participants came from the Youth Emotion Project, a longitudinal study of risk for emotional disorders. Results support the predictive validity of the proposed summary scoring methods and indicate that several forms of major (but typically not minor) adversity are significantly associated with first onsets of MDD and anxiety disorders. Finally, multivariate regression models show that, in many instances, the new indices contributed significant unique variance predicting disorder onsets over and above the previously used summary indices

Associations between jet lag and cortisol diurnal rhythms after domestic travel.

Objective: Millions of adults in the United States travel abruptly across time zones each year. Nevertheless, the impact of traveling over relatively short distances (across 3 or fewer time zones) on diurnal patterning of typical physiological response patterns has yet to be studied in a large, epidemiological sample. Design: The current research focuses on 764 middle-aged men comparing variations in diurnal cortisol regulation based on number of time zones traveled eastward or westward the day before. Main Outcome Measure: Participants provided samples of salivary cortisol at waking, 30-min postwaking, 10 a.m., 3 p.m., and bedtime. Results: Eastward travel was associated with a steeper salivary cortiso

Daytime Sleepiness Underlies the Link Between Adverse Parenting and Youth Psychopathology Among Adolescent Girls

Introduction: Adverse parenting is associated with sleep problems in adolescence, including sleep quality, inadequate sleep, and daytime sleepiness. Adolescents who experience sleep problems are at greater risk for developing internalizing and externalizing problems. However, research on the intervening role of sleep in the link between adverse parenting and youth psychopathology remains limited. The present study aimed to examine the indirect effects of adverse parenting on youth internalizing and externalizing psychopathology via sleep problems, and to examine the moderating role of gender in associations between parenting and sleep. Methods: Participants were 101 low-income youth aged 9–12 (52.5% female; 75.2% African-American) and their primary caregivers. Families were from a non-metropolitan region in the Southeastern United States. Data were collected at two time points (T1; Mage = 10.28, SD = 1.2; T2; Mage = 12.08, SD = 1.2). Adverse parenting was measured at T1, youth-reported sleep problems (inadequacy, disturbance) and daytime sleepiness were assessed at T2, and parent-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms were measured at T2. Results: Daytime sleepiness served as an intervening variable in associations between adverse parenting and internalizing and externalizing problems, but sleep problems did not. This indirect association was moderated by gender, such that the association between adverse parenting and daytime sleepiness only emerged as significant for girls. Conclusions: These findings suggest that daytime-related sleep behaviors may serve as a mechanism through which harsh or neglectful parenting is related to internalizing and externalizing psychopathology in adolescence, particularly for adolescent girls

Early Adversity and Internalizing Symptoms in Adolescence: Mediation by Individual Differences in Latent Trait Cortisol

Research suggests that early adversity places individuals at risk for psychopathology across the life span. Guided by concepts of allostasis and allostatic load, the present study examined whether early adversity contributes to the development of subsequent internalizing symptoms through its association with traitlike individual differences in hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis regulation. Early adolescent girls (n = 113; M age = 12.30 years) provided saliva samples at waking, 30 min postwaking, and bedtime over 3 days (later assayed for cortisol). Objective contextual stress interviews with adolescents and their mothers were used to assess the accumulation of nine types of early adversity within the family environment. Greater early adversity predicted subsequent increases in internalizing symptoms through lower levels of latent trait cortisol. Traitlike individual differences in hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity may be among the mechanisms through which early adversity confers risk for the development of psychopathology

Epigenetic differences in inflammation genes of monozygotic twins are related to parent-child emotional availability and health

The inflammatory response is an immune defense engaged immediately after injury or infection. Chronic inflammation can be deleterious for various health outcomes and is characterized by high levels of pro-inflammatory markers such as C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin 6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α). A large body of research demonstrates these inflammatory markers are responsive to stress and quality of social relationships throughout the lifespan. For example, the quality of the early parental bond predicts various health outcomes and may be driven by changes in immune function. Epigenetic processes, such as DNA methylation, may be one mechanism by which early social experiences shape immune functioning. The present study used a monozygotic twin difference design to assess if mother-reported emotional availability at 1 year and 2.5 years predicted immune gene methylation at 8 years of age. Further, we assessed if inflammation gene methylation was related to general health problems (e.g. infections, allergies, etc.). We found that mother-reported emotional availability at 1 year, but not 2.5 years, was related to methylation of various immune genes in monozygotic twins. Furthermore, twin pairs discordant in health problems have more difference in immune gene methylation compared to twin pairs concordant for health problems, suggesting that methylation of immune genes may have functional consequences for general health. These results suggest that the emotional component of attachment quality during infancy contributes to immune epigenetic profiles in childhood, which may influence general health