Hair cortisol as a biomarker of chronic stress in mother-infant dyads

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的目的是更好地了解慢性压力对母亲及其婴儿的影响。女性容易患慢性压力和压力相关疾病（例如，抑郁、焦虑），并且已知这些母亲经历对婴儿的发育具有不利影响，包括其HPA轴和其他压力相关系统的组织。不幸的是，不仅很少有关于慢性压力对母亲和婴儿的影响的研究，而且在任何人群中测量慢性压力都是有问题的。评估慢性压力在婴儿等人群中尤其困难，因为其他人的主观报告福尔斯确定婴儿的经历。慢性压力的生物学测量通常依赖于皮质醇基础水平的测量。然而，从唾液、血液和尿液中评估皮质醇，以及这些措施捕获多个时间点的要求，很可能无法充分捕获他们声称要测量的慢性压力水平。这个项目的目标是评估使用头发皮质醇作为一个生物标志物的慢性压力在母婴二人组。头发皮质醇是一种新兴的生物标志物，可能是测量HPA活性的有效方法，因为它可以提供更长的回顾性日历（例如，3-6个月）的慢性压力与其他来源的皮质醇测量值进行比较。从实用的角度来看，毛发皮质醇的取样和储存可能比从唾液、血液或尿液中收集皮质醇所需的现行程序要简单。头发皮质醇可以提供 这类应激相关疾病的有效标记，并且是确定婴儿后期发育问题风险的重要工具。为了实现我们的目标，我们将使用纵向设计，遵循两个队列“高风险”（n=80）和“低风险”（n=80）母婴 产后9个月（T1）和12个月（T2）时的成对儿。通过使用最新的毛发皮质醇采样和测定程序，我们预计在这些时间点从母亲和婴儿中采样的毛发将提供前3个月（T1：6-9个月，T2：9-12个月）的回顾性皮质醇数据。报告的慢性压力，抑郁和焦虑症状，以及创伤暴露也将通过问卷调查和访谈从母亲那里收集。我们计划计算各组之间头发皮质醇的差异，母亲和婴儿头发皮质醇之间的关联，以及头发皮质醇水平与报告的慢性压力之间的关联。我们 预计“高危”人群的皮质醇水平高于“低危”人群，母亲和婴儿的头发皮质醇水平呈正相关，头发皮质醇与报告的慢性压力呈正相关。因为头发皮质醇是一种新的测量方法，从未用于母婴配对，我们将跟踪参与者的招募率。这个项目有可能建立一个有用的和有效的生物标志物的慢性压力，同时推动我们的研究。 了解造成母亲和婴儿慢性压力和不良后果的机制（因素和调节因素）。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of this study is to better understand the effects of chronic stress on mothers and their infants. Women are prone to chronic stress and stress-related disorders (e.g., depression, anxiety) within the first year of giving birth, and thee maternal experiences are known to have an adverse effect on infants' development including the organization of their HPA axis and other stress related systems. Unfortunately,, not only are there few studies pertaining to the effects of chronic stress on mothers and infants, but the measurement of chronic stress in any population is problematic. Assessing chronic stress is particularly difficult in populations such as infants, since subjective report from others falls shrt of identifying the infants' experience. Biological measures of chronic stress often rely on measures of basal levels of cortisol. However, it is quite possible that assessments of cortisol from saliva, blood, and urine and the requirement with these measures to capture multiple time points do not adequately capture the chronic levels of stress that they purport to measure. The goal of this project is to evaluate the use of hair cortisol as a biomarker for chronic stress in mother-infant dyads. Hair cortisol is an emerging biomarker that may be an effective method for measuring HPA activity, as it can provide a longer retrospective calendar (e.g., 3- to 6-months) of chronic stress compared with measures of cortisol from other sources. From a practical standpoint, the sampling and storage of hair cortisol may be less cumbersome than the current procedures required from cortisol collected from saliva, blood, or urine. Hair cortisol may provide an effective marker for such stress related disorders and be an important tool for determining risk of later developmental problems among infants. To accomplish our goal, we will use a longitudinal design that follows two cohorts "high risk" (n=80) and "low risk" (n=80) mother-infant dyads at 9 months (T1) and 12 months (T2) postpartum. By using up-to-date hair cortisol sampling and assay procedures, we expect that the hair sampled from mothers and infants at these time points will provide retrospective cortisol data from the previous 3 months (T1: 6-9 months, T2: 9-12 months). Reported chronic stress, depression and anxiety symptoms, and trauma exposure will also be collected from the mother through questionnaires and interviews. We plan to calculate differences in hair cortisol across groups, associations between mother and infant hair cortisol, and associations of hair cortisol levels with reported chronic stress. We expect the "high risk" group to have higher levels of cortisol than the "low risk" group, positive associations of the hair cortisol levels of mothers and infants, and positive associations of the hair cortisol and reported chronic stress. Because hair cortisol is a new measure and has never been used with mother-infant dyads, we will track participant recruitment rates. This project has the potential to establish a useful and efficient biomarker for chronic stress while propelling our understanding of the mechanisms (factors and moderators) that underlie chronic stress and adverse outcomes in mothers and infants.