Department of Biobehavioral Health, The Pennsylvania State University, 219 Biobehavioral Health Building, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 380 1530 East, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA.
J Behav Med. 2020 Oct;43(5):829-838. doi: 10.1007/s10865-019-00119-z. Epub 2019 Nov 21.
Better executive functioning may be associated with more adaptive stress responses than worse executive functioning, potentially due to less propensity for rumination. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that better executive functioning would be associated with decreased total cortisol output (AUC) and cortisol sensitivity with respect to increase/decrease (AUC) in response to a stressor, and that this association is mediated by stress task rumination. Participants completed measures of inhibition, updating/monitoring, and cognitive flexibility, a social-evaluative stressor, and a self-report measure of rumination about the stressor. Participants provided saliva samples at six time points to measure cortisol output and sensitivity. Cognitive flexibility was negatively associated with stress task rumination (r = - .30, p < .05); however, this association was no longer significant when adding covariates (i.e., participant age, sex, highest education, and body mass index) to a regression model. Cognitive flexibility was also associated with AUC (r = - .28, p < .05), while rumination was associated with AUC in non-adjusted (r = .28, p < .05) and adjusted (b = .81, p < .05) analyses. Furthermore, females demonstrated better cognitive flexibility (r = .26, p < .05) and lower AUC (r = - .45, p < .05) compared to males. Findings demonstrate the importance of cognitive flexibility and rumination when predicting dynamic measures of stress-induced cortisol over time.
更好的执行功能可能与更适应的压力反应相关，而不是更差的执行功能，这可能是由于较少的沉思倾向。在这项研究中，我们测试了这样一个假设，即更好的执行功能与应激后总皮质醇输出（AUC）和皮质醇敏感性（AUC）的降低有关，而这种关联是由应激任务沉思介导的。参与者完成了抑制、更新/监控和认知灵活性的测量，一个社会评价性应激源，以及一个关于应激源的沉思的自我报告测量。参与者在六个时间点提供唾液样本，以测量皮质醇输出和敏感性。认知灵活性与应激任务沉思呈负相关（r=-0.30，p<0.05）；然而，当向回归模型中添加协变量（即参与者年龄、性别、最高教育程度和体重指数）时，这种关联不再显著。认知灵活性也与 AUC 相关（r=-0.28，p<0.05），而沉思与未调整（r=0.28，p<0.05）和调整（b=0.81，p<0.05）分析中的 AUC 相关。此外，女性表现出更好的认知灵活性（r=0.26，p<0.05）和更低的 AUC（r=-0.45，p<0.05），与男性相比。研究结果表明，在预测随时间变化的应激诱导皮质醇的动态测量时，认知灵活性和沉思非常重要。
