Department of Pediatrics, Institute for the Study of Child Development, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School - UMDNJ, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
Child Maltreat. 2013 Feb;18(1):8-16. doi: 10.1177/1077559512449378. Epub 2012 Jul 1.
Neglected children's acute hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis) reactivity in response to a laboratory visit was contrasted with that of a comparison group. The authors examined initial salivary cortisol response upon entering the laboratory and its trajectory following a set of tasks designed to elicit negative self-evaluation in 64 children (30 with a history of neglect and 34 demographically matched comparison children). Neglected, but not comparison, children showed higher initial cortisol responses. The cortisol response of both groups showed a decline from the sample taken at lab entry, with neglected children's cortisol exhibiting steeper decline. The groups, however, did not differ in their mean cortisol levels at 20 and 35 min post-task. The results are interpreted in terms of the meaning of initial responses as a "baseline" and as evidence for neglected children's heightened HPA-axis reactivity as either a reflection of differences in home levels or the consequence of stress/anxiety associated with arrival at the laboratory.
作者对比了受忽视儿童和对照组儿童在实验室就诊时急性下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺轴（HPA 轴）反应的差异。作者检测了 64 名儿童（有受忽视经历的儿童 30 名，人口统计学匹配的对照组儿童 34 名）进入实验室时初始唾液皮质醇的反应及其在一系列旨在引起自我负面评价的任务后的反应轨迹。受忽视的儿童而非对照组儿童表现出更高的初始皮质醇反应。两组儿童的皮质醇反应均从实验室入口处采集的样本开始下降，受忽视儿童的皮质醇下降更为陡峭。然而，两组儿童在任务后 20 分钟和 35 分钟的平均皮质醇水平没有差异。研究结果从初始反应作为“基线”的意义以及受忽视儿童 HPA 轴反应性增强的证据两个方面进行了解释，这可能反映了家庭环境水平的差异，也可能是与到达实验室相关的应激/焦虑的结果。
