Original ArticleDecreased Adrenocorticotropic Hormone and Cortisol Responses to Stress in Healthy Adults Reporting Significant Childhood Maltreatment
Section snippets
Subjects
Fifty adults, ages 20 to 59, were selected for participation. Advertisements for “healthy adults with a history of early life stress” were posted in the community. We included only those who scored moderate to severe on at least one of the five subscales of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) (40, 41, 42) and did not meet current DSM-IV criteria for MDD or PTSD (n = 23). A second cohort of healthy volunteers (n = 27) was recruited via advertisements for “healthy research subjects.” We
Demographic and Clinical Characteristics
Clinical characteristics of the groups are displayed in Table 1. Subjects reporting moderate or severe childhood maltreatment (MAL, n = 23) were, on average, older than the control subjects (CTL), but sex distribution was equivalent. The distribution of female subjects across three categories used to approximate relevant hormone status on the day of the TSST (i.e., [1] cycle days 1 to 14; [2] cycle days 15 to 28; [3] taking daily hormone therapy) did not differ statistically between groups,
Discussion
The main finding of this study was suppression of cortisol response to a standardized laboratory psychosocial stressor among healthy adults reporting significant childhood maltreatment relative to healthy control subjects reporting none. Corresponding with this dampened cortisol reactivity, our subjects with early life abuse or neglect had a blunted ACTH response curve when compared with the nontraumatized counterparts. Subjective ratings of emotional responses suggested both groups experienced
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