BEHAVIORAL/HORMONAL RESPONSES TO STRESS IN INFANTS

在项目期间进行的研究旨在 扩展我们对人类压力和应对的心理生物学的理解 新生儿、婴儿和幼儿。 建议进行三组研究， 研究幼儿对压力的行为和生理反应。 研究的重点是垂体-肾上腺-皮质系统， 神经内分泌系统在抗应激中起着重要作用。 的 研究的目标包括描述肾上腺皮质对 通常发生在幼儿生活中的压力源。 这些 压力源包括脚后跟，接种疫苗，以及婴儿早期的处理， 和社会心理压力源，如与陌生人的互动，分离， 以及年龄较大的婴儿和幼儿的接近-回避冲突。 第二 目的是检查基础肾上腺皮质活动及其与 应激反应 第三个目标是研究 肾上腺皮质活动和婴儿对压力和 在个体差异的背景下理解这些关系， 气质，亲子互动，父母的个性， 气质 最后一个主要目标是开始为 研究肾上腺皮质活动和其他压力之间的联系， 情绪敏感的生理系统。 最后，试点研究是 建议将研究范围扩大到“高危”婴儿群体， 年幼的孩子。 这项研究提供了相当大的希望，在增加我们的 理解发展中儿童的压力和应对过程。

The research to be performed during the project period is designed to extend our understanding of the psychobiology of stress and coping in human newborns, infants and toddlers. Three groups of studies are proposed to examine young children's behavioral and physiological responses to stress. The focus of the research is on the pituitary-adreno-cortical system, a neuroendocrine system that plays a central role in stress resistance. The goals of the research include characterizing the adrenocortical response to normally occurring stressors in the lives of young children. These stressors include heelsticks, inoculations, and handling in early infancy, and psychosocial stressors such as interaction with strangers, separation, and approach-avoidance conflicts in older infants and toddlers. A second goal is to examine basal adrenocortical activity and its relations to the stress response. A third goal is to examine the relations between adrenocortical activity and infant behavioral responses to stress and to understand these relations Within the context of individual differences in temperament, parentinfant interaction, and parental personality and temperament. A final, major goal is to begin to develop paradigms for examining the links between adrenocortical activity and other stress- and emotion-sensitive physiological systems. Finally, pilot studies are proposed to extend the research to "at risk" populations of infants and young children. The research offers considerable promise in increasing our understanding of stress and coping processes in the developing child.