title: Stress response and the adolescent transition: performance versus peer rejection stressors.
abstract: Little is known about normative variation in stress response over the adolescent transition. This study examined neuroendocrine and cardiovascular responses to performance and peer rejection stressors over the adolescent transition in a normative sample. Participants were 82 healthy children (ages 7-12 years, n = 39, 22 females) and adolescents (ages 13-17, n = 43, 20 females) recruited through community postings. Following a habituation session, participants completed a performance (public speaking, mental arithmetic, mirror tracing) or peer rejection (exclusion challenges) stress session. Salivary cortisol, salivary alpha amylase (sAA), systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP), and heart rate were measured throughout. Adolescents showed significantly greater cortisol, sAA, SBP, and DBP stress response relative to children. Developmental differences were most pronounced in the performance stress session for cortisol and DBP and in the peer rejection session for sAA and SBP. Heightened physiological stress responses in typical adolescents may facilitate adaptation to new challenges of adolescence and adulthood. In high-risk adolescents, this normative shift may tip the balance toward stress response dysregulation associated with depression and other psychopathology. Specificity of physiological response by stressor type highlights the importance of a multisystem approach to the psychobiology of stress and may also have implications for understanding trajectories to psychopathology.
authors.affiliation: Center for Behavioral Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Brown Medical School and The Miriam Hospital, CoroWest, Suite 500, 1 Hoppin Street, Providence, RI 02903, USA. laura_stroud@brown.edu
authors.forename: Laura R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Stroud
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Foster
authors.forename: George D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Papandonatos
authors.forename: Kathryn
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Handwerger
authors.forename: Douglas A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Granger
authors.forename: Katie T
authors.initials: KT
authors.lastname: Kivlighan
authors.forename: Raymond
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Niaura
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000339:Affect; D001794:Blood Pressure; D002648:Child; D004644:Emotions; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D010379:Peer Group; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D002666:Psychology, Child; D011627:Puberty / Q000523:psychology; D044469:Racial Groups; D013060:Speech; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*
chemical_list: D006854:Hydrocortisone