Testosterone and Cortisol Levels in Infant Health and Development

项目总结/摘要 确定负面健康结果的早期标志物对维持最佳婴儿期至关重要 发展和制定成功的卫生干预措施，特别是对极低出生体重儿， 出生体重低于1，500克）的早产男婴，他们更容易出现与健康有关的问题， 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 这表明，睾丸激素和皮质醇水平在婴儿中彼此呈正相关， 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并发症的更可靠的标志物/预测因子 影响婴儿的健康结果、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。 本研究采用比较和纵向研究设计，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） 母婴互动，以及（3）在调整母亲的影响后，婴儿的认知/运动/语言发育 心理状态、婴儿气质和母亲特征。190只母VLBW 早产儿对将被招募从新生儿重症监护病房（NICU）在大学 亚拉巴马在伯明翰附属妇女和婴儿中心。两人的人口和健康数据将 在新生儿重症监护室收集，并在新生儿随访诊所更新， 出院后随访访视（在6、12和24个月矫正早产年龄时）。在这些 访问，母婴互动将录像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。并发和重复 将通过以下方法测量婴儿和母亲的睾酮和皮质醇水平： 婴儿期和幼儿期（出生时、经后40周年龄和6、12和24个月校正年龄）。 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次收集，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.