Testosterone and Cortisol Levels in Infant Health and Development

产品说明：确定负面健康结果的早期标志物对于保持婴儿最佳发育和制定成功的健康干预措施至关重要，特别是对于极低出生体重（VLBW，出生体重低于1 500 g）早产男婴，他们比女婴更容易出现健康相关问题。 一般的性别差异理论和极端的男性大脑理论，以及我们的初步研究表明，睾丸激素和皮质醇水平在婴儿中是正相关的，而在婴儿中是负相关的。 与婴儿早期的婴儿健康结果和1至3岁之间的发育结果相关。我们计划证实，睾酮而不是皮质醇是影响婴儿健康结局、母婴互动和婴儿认知/运动/语言发育结局的并发症的更可靠的标志物/预测因子;这些结局证明，男婴对睾酮水平的敏感性高于女婴。 本研究采用比较和纵向研究设计，旨在描述通过睾酮和皮质醇水平测量的性别差异：（1）新生儿和婴儿的健康结局，（2）母婴互动质量，（3）调整母亲心理状态，婴儿气质和母亲特征后的婴儿认知/运动/语言发育。将从亚拉巴马大学伯明翰分校附属妇女和婴儿中心的新生儿重症监护室（NICU）招募190对母亲-极低出生体重早产儿。将在NICU收集成对婴儿的人口统计学和健康数据，并在新生儿随访诊所进行更新，婴儿出院后计划进行3次随访访视（6、12和24个月早产校正年龄）。在这些访视期间，将对母婴互动进行15分钟的录像，并将使用适合年龄的测量方法收集婴儿认知/运动/语言发育结局。将在婴儿期和幼儿期（出生时、经后40周龄和6、12和24个月校正年龄）同时重复测量婴儿和母亲的睾酮和皮质醇水平。 将首先进行探索性数据分析，以深入了解收集的数据。广义线性模型 将被用来模拟独立的数据与一个时间收集，而广义估计方程和广义线性混合效应模型是标准的方法建模相关的纵向数据。

DESCRIPTION: 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.