Child Maltreatment, HPA axis and ANS activity, and Youth Aggression

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A history of child maltreatment is linked to a host of negative outcomes during adolescence, including aggression and delinquency. One possible route by which maltreatment may affect adolescent functioning is via alterations of the biological stress response. The trauma of child maltreatment may cause dysregulation of biological stress response systems, including attenuation of response systems over time in the face of chronic maltreatment. Low activity in the biological stress responses has been linked with aggression and delinquency. Alternatively, acute maltreatment may lead to sensitization to subsequent interpersonal stress and emotional dysregulation. The biological stress response comprises two key systems: (1) the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which includes the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and adrenergic activity more specifically, and (2) the hypothalamic pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Most research on the role of the stress response in atypical development examines only one of these systems at a time, thus limiting knowledge about the combined role these related systems play in linking the traumatic stress of maltreatment with negative outcomes. The proposed study is a secondary analysis of data already collected. The goal is to examine the effects of child maltreatment on the adrenergic component of the biological stress response and to add that information to data on HPA axis function collected from the same sample. The project would allow examination of the combined roles of both systems in the link between child maltreatment experiences and adolescent aggression and delinquent behavior. This study is a secondary analysis of data collected from participants in a previously funded R01 study of the effects of maltreatment on adolescent development. Participants include 303 adolescents recruited based on having recent substantiated referrals to child protective services, and 151 comparison youth recruited from the same or comparable Census blocks. A parent or guardian of each youth also participated. The current application focuses on the second wave of 3 waves of data collection. Adolescents participated in a standardized social stress protocol (The TSST, Kirschbaum et al., 1993) and provided two saliva samples before and six after the stressor. Assays are conducted for cortisol as funded by the R01 study. The current application is to conduct assays of salivary alpha-amylase (AA), a marker of adrenergic activity. Thus, the application would allow not only the investigation of salivary AA as a function of family violence exposure and observed family conflict, but examination of how both biological stress response systems jointly account for aggression and delinquent behavior.