Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, USA; Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, USA.
Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, USA; Department of Human Ecology, University of California, Davis, USA; Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, University of Southern California, USA.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2021 Oct;132:105340. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2021.105340. Epub 2021 Jun 21.
Poverty is a chronic stressor associated with disruptions in psychophysiological development during adolescence. This study examined associations of chronic poverty and income changes experienced from pre- to mid-adolescence with hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis stress responses in late adolescence. Participants (N = 229) were adolescents of Mexican-origin (48.7% female). Household income (converted to income-to-needs ratios) was assessed annually when children were 10-16 years old. At 17 years, adolescents completed Cyberball, a social exclusion simulation task while undergoing a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Saliva samples were collected prior to and five times over a 50-minute period following the scan, from which salivary cortisol was assayed. Results showed that differential trajectories of poverty from ages 10-16 predicted HPA axis activity at age 17. Relative to others, distinct HPA suppression (hyporeactivity) was demonstrated by youth who started adolescence in deep poverty and were still living in poverty at age 16 despite experiencing some income gains. Youth from more economically secure families evinced typical cortisol increases following the lab stressor. These results suggest that subsequent HPA functioning varies as a function of economic status throughout adolescence, and that efforts to increase family income may promote healthy HPA functioning for youths in the most impoverished circumstances.
贫困是一种慢性压力源，与青少年时期心理生理发育的中断有关。本研究考察了青少年早期至中期持续贫困和收入变化与青春期后期下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴应激反应之间的关联。参与者（N=229）为墨西哥裔青少年（48.7%为女性）。家庭收入（转换为收入与需求的比率）在儿童 10-16 岁时每年进行评估。在 17 岁时，青少年在接受功能磁共振成像扫描的同时完成了 Cyberball 社交排斥模拟任务。扫描前和扫描后 50 分钟内五次采集唾液样本，测定唾液皮质醇水平。结果表明，10-16 岁期间贫困的不同轨迹预测了 17 岁时的 HPA 轴活性。与其他青少年相比，那些在贫困中开始青春期并在 16 岁时仍处于贫困状态的青少年表现出明显的 HPA 抑制（低反应性），尽管他们经历了一些收入增长。来自经济状况较好家庭的青少年在实验室应激源后表现出典型的皮质醇增加。这些结果表明，整个青春期的经济状况不同，HPA 功能也会有所不同，而增加家庭收入的努力可能会促进最贫困环境中青少年的 HPA 功能健康。
