Extraversion modulates cortisol responses to acute social stress in chronic major depression

No evidence for relationship between paternal post-partum depressive symptoms and testosterone or cortisol in first-time fathers

Male life history strategies are regulated by the neuroendocrine system. Testosterone (T) and cortisol regulate male behaviors including parenting and facilitate managing tradeoffs at key transitions in development such as first-time fatherhood. Both hormones demonstrate marked fluctuations in the postnatal period, and this presents an opportunity to investigate the role of T and cortisol in postpartum depressive symptoms-comparably less studied in fathers than in mothers in the evolutionary literature. Prior work on depressive symptoms has yet to integrate insights from the "dual hormone hypothesis (DHH)" which has focused on how T and cortisol interact to jointly regulate traits associated with dominance and status-seeking (i.e., mating effort) but has yet to be included in models of parenting effort. In this research, we use secondary data to investigate the relationship between DHH and traits ostensibly opposed to status seeking (i.e., depressive symptoms). First-time fathers (n = 193) provided morning saliva samples 10 months following parturition and reported on the presence of depressive symptoms (BDI-II). Responses were decomposed into three factors: cognitive, affective, and somatic. Using hybrid latent variable structural equation modeling, we did not find evidence that T predicted variability in cognitive, affective, or somatic depressive symptom factors. We found a null effect for cortisol as well. Finally, we could not find evidence that the DHH variable (T × cortisol interaction) predicted any variability in cognitive, affective, or somatic depressive symptoms. While we did not find evidence to support our hypotheses using a secondary data set, this study contributes to research on the neuroendocrinology of depression in fathers. Discussion focuses on the limitations of sample demographics, timing of saliva and self-report collection, and the lack of extant theory specific to paternal postpartum depression.

Monitoring the effects of therapeutic interventions in depression through self-assessments

The treatment of major psychiatric disorders is an arduous and thorny path for the patients concerned, characterized by polypharmacy, massive adverse side effects, modest prospects of success, and constantly declining response rates. The more important is the early detection of psychiatric disorders prior to the development of clinically relevant symptoms, so that people can benefit from early interventions. A well-proven approach to monitoring mental health relies on voice analysis. This method has been successfully used with psychiatric patients to 'objectively' document the progress of improvement or the onset of relapse. The studies with psychiatric patients over 2-4 weeks demonstrated that daily voice assessments have a notable therapeutic effect in themselves. Therefore, daily voice assessments appear to be a lowthreshold form of therapeutic means that may be realized through self-assessments. To evaluate performance and reliability of this approach, we have carried out a longitudinal study on 82 university students in 3 different countries with daily assessments over 2 weeks. The sample included 41 males (mean age 24.2±3.83 years) and 41 females (mean age 21.6±2.05 years). Unlike other research in the field, this study was not concerned with the classification of individuals in terms of diagnostic categories. The focus lay on the monitoring aspect and the extent to which the effects of therapeutic interventions or of behavioural changes are visible in the results of self-assessment voice analyses. The test persons showed an over-proportionally good adherence to the daily voice analysis scheme. The accumulated data were of generally high quality: sufficiently high signal levels, a very limited number of movement artifacts, and little to no interfering background noise. The method was sufficiently sensitive to detect: i) habituation effects when test persons became used to the daily procedure; and ii) short-term fluctuations that exceeded prespecified thresholds and reached significance. Results are directly interpretable and provide information about what is going well, what is going less well, and where there is a need for action. The proposed self-assessment approach was found to be well-suited to serve as a health-monitoring tool for subjects with an elevated vulnerability to psychiatric disorders or to stress-induced mental health problems. Daily voice assessments are in fact a low-threshold form of therapeutic means that can be realized through selfassessments, that requires only little effort, can be carried out in the test person's own home, and has the potential to strengthen resilience and to induce positive behavioural changes.

The role of childhood maltreatment in cortisol in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in methamphetamine-dependent individuals with and without depression comorbidity and suicide attempts

BACKGROUND

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysregulation which was found to have an important role in the pathophysiology of depression, suicide, and substance dependence, may be influenced by childhood maltreatment (CM). The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between CM and cortisol changes in methamphetamine-dependent individuals.

METHODS

In a cross-sectional study, methamphetamine-dependent individuals (n = =195) with or without both comorbid major depressive disorder (MDD) and a history of suicide attempts were selected and completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF), the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSSI), and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II). To assess cortisol levels, saliva samples were collected at six time intervals for two consecutive days.

RESULTS

A history of CM significantly predicted wake-up cortisol level, cortisol awakening response (CAR), and diurnal cortisol slope. Methamphetamine-dependent individuals with both MDD and lifetime suicide attempts had higher CM and higher cortisol levels with a blunted diurnal cortisol slope than individuals who were merely methamphetamine-dependent. Individuals with high CM showed higher cortisol levels with a blunted diurnal slope than those with low or without CM.

LIMITATIONS

Cross-sectional data and use of self-report scales, especially retrospective measurements (e.g., the CTQ-SF), were important limitations of this study.

CONCLUSION

Findings suggest that methamphetamine-dependent individuals with adverse psychological factors such as CM, MDD, and suicide attempts may show dysregulation in biological factors including cortisol level. In addition, CM and its effects on cortisol in the HPA axis may emerge as important factors regarding psychopathological use of methamphetamine.

Early Detection of the Risk of Developing Psychiatric Disorders: A Study of 461 Chinese University Students under Chronic Stress

Chronic stress, a characteristic of modern time, has a significant impact on general health. In the context of psychiatric disorders, insufficient coping behavior under chronic stress has been linked to higher rates of (1) depressive symptoms among subjects of the general population, (2) relapse among patients under treatment for clinical depression, and (3) negative symptoms among subjects with an elevated vulnerability to psychosis. In this normative study we assessed basic coping behavior among 461 Chinese freshman university students along with their consumption behavior and general health in terms of regular exercises, physical health, psychosomatic disturbances, and mental health. The assessments relied on two instruments that have already demonstrated their capability of (1) reliably detecting insufficient coping behavior under chronic stress and (2) reliably quantifying the interrelation between coping behavior and mental health in the Western world. Thus, we aimed to complement existing data and to develop a generally available, socioculturally independent tool that can be used for the early detection of subjects with an elevated risk of mental health problems. Structural analyses yielded essentially the same scales "activity" and "defeatism" as previous studies on 2,500 students from Switzerland, Italy, Spain, the USA, and Argentina. These scales explained 74.3% of the observed variance in coping behavior among the 461 Chinese students. We found highly significant correlations (p < 0.0001) between the "defeatism" scale on the one hand, and the scales "regular use of medicine," "psychosomatic disturbances," and "impaired mental health" on the other. Particularly intriguing was the finding that a neural net classifier could be constructed to identify students with the highest contributions to the interrelation between "coping behavior" and "mental health," yielding a correlation coefficient as high as r = 0.597 for the respective subgroup. Based on the normative data, an online tool for risk assessments was developed with immediate feedback to users. This study provided another piece of evidence regarding the close link between basic coping behavior and mental health, across cultures and ethnicities. In consequence, our approach to quantifying basic coping behavior, along with other risk factors, can be expected to clear the way for an "early" detection of students with an elevated risk of stress-related mental health problems, nota bene prior to the development of clinically relevant symptoms. The socioeconomic impact of the potential prevention of depressive -disorders, and psychiatric disorders in general, may be enormous.