Baliyan Shishir, Cimadevilla José Manuel, de Vidania Silvia, Pulopulos Matías M, Sandi Carmen, Venero César
Department of Psychobiology, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), 28040 Madrid, Spain.
Department of Psychology, University of Almeria, 04120 Almeria, Spain.
Brain Sci. 2021 Mar 9;11(3):348. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11030348.
There are important individual differences in adaptation and reactivity to stressful challenges. Being subjected to strict social confinement is a distressful psychological experience leading to reduced emotional well-being, but it is not known how it can affect the cognitive and empathic tendencies of different individuals. Cortisol, a key glucocorticoid in humans, is a strong modulator of brain function, behavior, and cognition, and the diurnal cortisol rhythm has been postulated to interact with environmental stressors to predict stress adaptation. The present study investigates in 45 young adults (21.09 years old, SD = 6.42) whether pre-pandemic diurnal cortisol indices, overall diurnal cortisol secretion (AUCg) and cortisol awakening response (CAR) can predict individuals' differential susceptibility to the impact of strict social confinement during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on working memory, empathy, and perceived stress. We observed that, following long-term home confinement, there was an increase in subjects' perceived stress and cognitive empathy scores, as well as an improvement in visuospatial working memory. Moreover, during confinement, resilient coping moderated the relationship between perceived stress scores and pre-pandemic AUCg and CAR. In addition, in mediation models, we observed a direct effect of AUCg and an indirect effect of both CAR and AUCg, on change in perceived self-efficacy. These effects were parallelly mediated by the increase in working memory span and cognitive empathy. In summary, our findings reveal the role of the diurnal pattern of cortisol in predicting the emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting a potential biomarker for the identification of at-risk groups following public health crises.
在应对压力挑战时，个体之间存在重要的差异。受到严格的社会限制是一种令人痛苦的心理体验，会导致情绪幸福感下降，但尚不清楚它如何影响不同个体的认知和共情倾向。皮质醇是人类体内一种关键的糖皮质激素，是大脑功能、行为和认知的强大调节因子，昼夜皮质醇节律被认为与环境应激源相互作用以预测压力适应性。本研究对45名年轻成年人（21.09岁，标准差 = 6.42）进行调查，探讨在2019年冠状病毒病（COVID - 19）大流行期间，疫情前的昼夜皮质醇指标、总体昼夜皮质醇分泌（AUCg）和皮质醇觉醒反应（CAR）是否能够预测个体对严格社会限制影响的不同易感性，这些影响涉及工作记忆、共情和感知压力。我们观察到，在长期居家隔离后，受试者的感知压力和认知共情得分增加，视觉空间工作记忆也有所改善。此外，在隔离期间，适应性应对调节了感知压力得分与疫情前AUCg和CAR之间的关系。另外，在中介模型中，我们观察到AUCg的直接效应以及CAR和AUCg对感知自我效能变化的间接效应。这些效应通过工作记忆广度和认知共情的增加平行介导。总之，我们的研究结果揭示了皮质醇昼夜模式在预测COVID - 19大流行的情绪影响方面的作用，突出了一种潜在的生物标志物，用于识别公共卫生危机后高危人群。
