Oslo University Hospital, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo, Norway.
Department of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences, University of Linköping, Sweden.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2023 Nov;157:106363. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106363. Epub 2023 Aug 9.
Cortisol in hair is a new biomarker assessing long-term hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity, which is related to emotion regulation. We compare hair cortisol concentrations (HCC), in clinically referred children with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) (n = 19), children with other types of psychological disorders (n = 48), and healthy subjects (n = 36). We also investigate the association between HCC and irritability, age, and sex. Our results show that children with DMDD or other types of psychological disorders have higher HCC than healthy subjects, p < .001, η = .39. No difference between children with DMDD and those with other types of psychological disorders was found, p = .91, nor an association between HCC and irritability in the clinical sample, p = .32. We found a significant negative correlation between HCC and age in those with DMDD, r = -0.54, p < .05, but not in the normative sample, r = -0.20, p = .25. No differences in HCC between girls and boys were found in the normative sample, p = .49. Children in need of psychological treatment, including those with DMDD, seem to have dysregulated HPA-axis activity over time. Excessive accumulated cortisol concentrations in hair could be an indicator of a psychological disorder in children.
头发中的皮质醇是一种评估长期下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴活动的新型生物标志物，与情绪调节有关。我们比较了临床上被诊断为情绪障碍调节障碍（DMDD）的儿童（n=19）、患有其他类型心理障碍的儿童（n=48）和健康对照者（n=36）的头发皮质醇浓度（HCC）。我们还研究了 HCC 与易激惹、年龄和性别之间的关系。我们的结果表明，DMDD 或其他类型心理障碍的儿童的 HCC 高于健康对照组，p<.001，η=0.39。DMDD 儿童与其他类型心理障碍儿童之间无差异，p=0.91，也无临床样本中 HCC 与易激惹之间的相关性，p=0.32。我们发现 DMDD 儿童 HCC 与年龄呈显著负相关，r=-0.54，p<.05，但在正常组中 r=-0.20，p=0.25。在正常组中，男孩和女孩之间的 HCC 无差异，p=0.49。需要心理治疗的儿童，包括 DMDD 儿童，其 HPA 轴活动似乎随时间失调。头发中过多的皮质醇积累可能是儿童心理障碍的一个指标。
