Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tennessee.
Depress Anxiety. 2014 Jan;31(1):44-52. doi: 10.1002/da.22125. Epub 2013 Apr 19.
This study examined cortisol and affective reactivity to a psychosocial stress task in 102 young adults who varied in risk for depression (56 remitted depressed, 46 never depressed). Participants were randomly assigned to either a stress (i.e., social-evaluative threat) or control (i.e., no social-evaluative threat) condition. For never-depressed individuals, cortisol responses were significantly greater in the stress compared to the control condition. Moreover, cortisol responses were significantly greater for never-depressed than remitted-depressed individuals in the stress condition. For individuals with a history of depression, cortisol responses did not differ significantly between the stress and control conditions. Negative affective reactivity also was higher for never depressed, but not remitted depressed, individuals in the stress compared to the control condition. Moreover, cortisol responses were inversely related to negative affect during the recovery phase in both stress and control conditions. Findings indicate the lack of a robust cortisol response to social evaluation stress among remitted-depressed individuals as compared to that of never-depressed controls. Future studies should investigate unique and interactive links between these hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal and affective reactivity alterations and risk for subsequent depressive episodes.
这项研究调查了 102 名年轻成年人在面对心理社会应激任务时皮质醇和情感反应的变化，这些人中有 56 名是抑郁缓解者，46 名是从未抑郁者。参与者被随机分配到应激（即社会评价威胁）或对照（即无社会评价威胁）条件下。对于从未抑郁的个体，皮质醇反应在应激条件下明显大于对照条件。此外，在应激条件下，从未抑郁的个体的皮质醇反应明显大于抑郁缓解的个体。对于有抑郁病史的个体，皮质醇反应在应激和对照条件之间没有显著差异。在应激条件下，与对照条件相比，从未抑郁的个体的消极情感反应也更高，但抑郁缓解的个体没有这种差异。此外，在应激和对照条件下，皮质醇反应与恢复阶段的消极情绪呈负相关。研究结果表明，与从未抑郁的对照组相比，抑郁缓解者对社会评价应激缺乏强烈的皮质醇反应。未来的研究应该调查下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺和情感反应变化与随后发生抑郁发作风险之间的独特和交互联系。
