Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
Division of Clinical Psychological Intervention, Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Dev Psychopathol. 2024 May;36(2):821-833. doi: 10.1017/S095457942300010X. Epub 2023 Mar 6.
Female adolescents have a greatly increased risk of depression starting at puberty, which continues throughout the reproductive lifespan. Sex hormone fluctuation has been highlighted as a key proximal precipitating factor in the development of mood disorders tied to reproductive events; however, hormone-induced affective state change is poorly understood in the pubertal transition. The present study investigated the impact of recent stressful life events on the relationship between sex hormone change and affective symptoms in peripubertal female participants. Thirty-five peripubertal participants (ages 11-14, premenarchal, or within 1 year of menarche) completed an assessment of stressful life events, and provided weekly salivary hormone collections [estrone, testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)] and mood assessments for 8 weeks. Linear mixed models tested whether stressful life events provided a context in which within-person changes in hormones predicted weekly affective symptoms. Results indicated that exposure to stressful life events proximal to the pubertal transition influenced the directional effects of hormone change on affective symptoms. Specifically, greater affective symptoms were associated with increases in hormones in a high stress context and decreases in hormones in a low stress context. These findings provide support for stress-related hormone sensitivity as a diathesis for precipitating affective symptoms in the presence of pronounced peripubertal hormone flux.
女性青少年在青春期开始时就面临着极大的抑郁风险，这种风险会持续整个生殖期。性激素波动已被强调为与生殖事件相关的情绪障碍发展的关键近端促成因素；然而，激素诱导的情感状态变化在青春期过渡中还不太清楚。本研究调查了近期生活应激事件对青春期前女性参与者性激素变化与情感症状之间关系的影响。35 名青春期前参与者（年龄 11-14 岁，初潮前或初潮后 1 年内）完成了生活应激事件评估，并在 8 周内每周提供唾液激素采集（雌酮、睾酮、脱氢表雄酮（DHEA））和情绪评估。线性混合模型检验了生活应激事件是否为个体内激素变化预测每周情感症状的提供了一个背景。结果表明，青春期过渡时生活应激事件的暴露影响了激素变化对情感症状的方向影响。具体来说，在高应激环境中，激素增加与更多的情感症状相关，而在低应激环境中，激素减少与更多的情感症状相关。这些发现为应激相关的激素敏感性提供了支持，即当青春期激素明显波动时，激素敏感性是引发情感症状的易感性因素。
