Relationship of cortisol and alpha amylase to behavioral engagement under three levels of negative evaluative psychosocial stress.

Despite that behavioral engagement is integral to mental health, surprisingly little is known about the relationship of psychosocial stress and behavioral engagement. The current study developed an observer-rated measure of behavioral engagement for lab-based stress inductions, then examined its relationship with stress-responsive biomarkers and affect. Young adults (N = 109, Mage=19.

Additive serotonergic genetic sensitivity and cortisol reactivity to lab-based social evaluative stress: Influence of severity across two samples.

Prior work demonstrates that an additive serotonergic multilocus genetic profile score (MGPS) predicts amplified risk for depression following significant life stress, and that it interacts with elevations in the cortisol awakening response to predict depression. The serotonin system and HPA-axis have bidirectional influence, but whether this MGPS predicts acute cortisol reactivity, which might then serve as a mechanism for depression, is unknown. Our prior work suggests that depression risk factors predict blunted cortisol reactivity to explicit negative evaluative lab-based stress.

The impact of prior day sleep and physical activity on the cortisol awakening response.

The cortisol awakening response (CAR) describes the increase in cortisol within the first 30-60 min after waking from nocturnal sleep, and is a common biomarker used within psychoneuroendocrinology, but the effect of sleep on the CAR is currently unclear. A previous study suggested that reported discrepancies may be due to other lifestyle behaviors such as physical activity; given the role of the CAR in energy regulation and preparation for the day, it is theoretically plausible that activity level would influence the CAR. However, no study has yet utilized objective monitoring of day-to-day sleep and physical activity to investigate potential effects on the CAR.