Testosterone and Cortisol Levels in Infant Health and Development

项目摘要/摘要 确定负面健康结局的早期标记物是维持最佳婴儿的关键 发展和制定成功的健康干预措施，特别是针对极低出生体重(VLBW， 出生体重低于1,500克)早产男婴比 女婴。 一般性别差异理论和极端男性大脑理论以及我们的初步研究 提示婴儿的睾丸激素和皮质醇水平呈正相关，呈负相关。 与婴幼儿早期的健康结果和1至3岁的发育结果有关。 我们计划确认睾丸激素而不是皮质醇是并发症的更可靠的标记/预测因子 影响婴儿健康结局、母婴互动和婴儿认知/运动/语言 发育结果；男婴对睾酮水平的敏感性高于女婴 这些结果证明了婴儿的健康状况。 本研究采用纵向对比研究设计，旨在描述性别差异。 通过睾酮和皮质醇水平测量(1)新生儿和婴儿的健康结果，(2)质量 母婴互动；(3)母婴校正后的婴儿认知/运动/语言发展。 心理状态、婴儿气质和母亲的特征。190名母亲--VLBW 早产儿配对将从加州大学新生儿重症监护病房(NICU)招募 阿拉巴马州伯明翰附属妇婴中心。这对夫妇的人口统计和健康数据将 在NICU收集，并在新生儿随访诊所更新，那里的婴儿被安排在三个月 出院后随访(6、12和24个月矫正的早产儿年龄)。在此期间 探视，母婴互动将被录像15分钟，婴儿认知/运动/语言 将使用适合年龄的测量方法收集发育结果。并发与重复 婴儿和母亲的睾酮和皮质醇水平的测量将通过 婴儿期和儿童期早期(出生时，月经后40周，校正年龄为6、12和24个月)。 首先将进行探索性数据分析，以深入了解收集到的数据。广义线性 模型将用于建模具有一次采集的独立数据，而广义估计 方程和广义线性混合效应模型是建立相关模型的标准方法 纵向数据。

Project Summary/Abstract Identification of early markers for negative health outcomes is critical to maintaining optimal infant development and for developing successful health interventions, particularly for very low birth weight (VLBW, birth weight less than 1,500 g) preterm male infants who are more prone to health-related problems than female infants. General gender-difference theories and the extreme male brain theories, as well as our preliminary studies suggest that testosterone and cortisol levels are positively related to each other in infants and are negatively associated with infant health outcomes in early infancy and with developmental outcomes between ages 1 to 3. We plan to confirm that testosterone rather than cortisol is a more reliable marker/predictor of complications affecting infants' health outcomes, mother-infant interactions, and infant cognitive/motor/ language developmental outcomes; and that male infants exhibit a higher sensitivity to testosterone levels than female infants as evidenced by these outcomes. This study involves a comparative and longitudinal research design aimed at describing gender differences measured by testosterone and cortisol levels with (1) health outcomes of neonates and infants, (2) quality of mother-infant interactions, and (3) infant cognitive/motor/language development after adjusting for maternal psychological state, infant temperament, and characteristics of mothers. One hundred ninety mother-VLBW preterm infant pairs will be recruited from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham affiliated Women and Infants Center. Demographic and health data of the pairs will be collected at the NICU and updated at the newborn follow-up clinic where the infants are scheduled for three follow-up visits (at 6, 12, and 24 months corrected age for prematurity) following discharge. During these visits, mother-infant interactions will be videotaped for 15 min and infant cognitive/motor/language developmental outcomes will be collected using age-appropriate measurements. Concurrent and repeated measurement of testosterone and cortisol levels both in infants and in mothers will be conducted through infancy and early childhood (at birth, 40 weeks postmenstrual age and 6 , 12 , and 24 months corrected age). Exploratory data analysis will first be performed to gain insight into the collected data. Generalized linear models will be used to model independent data with one time collection while the generalized estimating equation and the generalized linear mixed-effects models are standard approaches for modeling correlated longitudinal data.