Biostatistics Department at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK.
School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK.
Transl Psychiatry. 2019 Feb 11;9(1):79. doi: 10.1038/s41398-019-0406-9.
Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are thought to confer risk for aggression via reduced amygdala responsivity to distress cues in others. Low cortisol reactivity is thought to confer risk for aggression via reduced arousal and this effect may be confined to boys. We tested the hypothesis that the association between childhood CU traits and aggression would be greatest in the absence of the inhibitory effects of cortisol reactivity, and that this effect would be sex dependent. Participants were 283 members of a stratified subsample within an epidemiological longitudinal cohort (WCHADS). Cortisol reactivity to a social stressor was assessed at 5 years. CU traits were reported by mothers at 5 years, and physical aggression by mothers and teachers at age 7. Results showed that CU traits were associated with elevated aggression at 7 years controlling for earlier aggression. There was no main effect of cortisol reactivity on regression. The association between CU traits and aggression was moderated by cortisol reactivity (p = .011) with a strong association between CU traits and aggression in the presence of low reactivity, and a small and non-significant association in the presence of high reactivity. This association was further moderated by child sex (p = .041) with the joint effect of high CU traits and low cortisol reactivity seen only in boys (p = .016). We report first evidence that a combined deficit in inhibitory processes associated with CU traits and low cortisol reactivity increases risk for childhood aggression, in a sex-dependent manner.
冷酷无情（CU）特质被认为通过降低对他人痛苦线索的杏仁核反应性来增加攻击性。皮质醇反应性低被认为通过降低唤醒来增加攻击性，这种影响可能仅限于男孩。我们检验了这样一个假设，即童年 CU 特质与攻击性之间的关联在皮质醇反应性的抑制作用不存在的情况下最大，并且这种效应具有性别依赖性。参与者是一个流行病学纵向队列（WCHADS）的分层子样本中的 283 名成员。在 5 岁时评估了对社会应激源的皮质醇反应性。在 5 岁时，母亲报告了 CU 特质，在 7 岁时，母亲和教师报告了身体攻击。结果表明，在控制早期攻击性的情况下，CU 特质与 7 岁时的攻击性升高有关。皮质醇反应性对回归没有主效应。皮质醇反应性调节 CU 特质与攻击性之间的关联（p=0.011），在皮质醇反应性低的情况下，CU 特质与攻击性之间存在强烈关联，而在皮质醇反应性高的情况下，关联较小且不显著。这种关联进一步受儿童性别调节（p=0.041），仅在男孩中观察到高 CU 特质和低皮质醇反应性的联合效应（p=0.016）。我们首次报告了这样的证据，即与 CU 特质和低皮质醇反应性相关的抑制过程的综合缺陷增加了儿童期攻击性的风险，这种风险具有性别依赖性。
