ReviewReviews in the neurosciences2011
Stress-linked cortisol concentrations in hair: what we know and what we need to know.
Review in Reviews in the neurosciences, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 41 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) Health Advocates Phase II Study
Cerebrovascular Disease: Quality of Life (CODE: QoL)
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 94 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of studies utilizing hair glucocorticoids as a measure of stress suggests the marker is more appropriate for quantifying short-term stressors.Scientific reports · 2019Pooled it
- Article
- Targeting the Gut Microbiota with Pro- and Postbiotics: Emerging Strategies against Alopecia.Probiotics and antimicrobial proteins · 2026Review
- Indirect Environmental Effects on the Gut-Brain Axis in a Wild Mammal.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- A Dual Biomarker Approach to Stress: Hair and Salivary Cortisol Measurement in Students via LC-MS/MS.Analytical science advances · 2025Article
- Mindfulness-Based Interventions and the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis: A Systematic Review.Neurology international · 2024Review
- The impact of marriage equality campaigns on stress: Did a Swiss public vote get under the skin?Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Cortisol in deciduous tooth tissues: A potential metric for assessing stress exposure in archaeological and living populations.International journal of paleopathology · 2023Article
- Technical validation and a comparison of two methods to quantify individual levels of glucocorticoids in Alpine marmot hair.MethodsX · 2023Article
- Fish Scales Produce Cortisol upon Stimulation with ACTH.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Impact of hair type, hair sample weight, external hair exposures, and race on cumulative hair cortisol.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2022Article
- Vitamin D Status Assessment: Lack of Correlation between Serum and Hair 25-Hydroxycholecalciferol Levels in Healthy Young Adults.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Social Fear in US Infants: The Roles of Hair and Salivary Cortisol.The Yale journal of biology and medicine · 2022Article
- Spaceflight Stressors and Skin Health.Biomedicines · 2022Review
- Big five traits and interpersonal goals during stressors as predictors of hair cortisol.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2021Article
- Effects of Wash Protocol and Contamination Level on Concentrations of Cortisol and Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) in Swine Hair.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Cortisol levels in blood and hair of unanesthetized grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) following intravenous cosyntropin injection.Veterinary medicine and science · 2021Article
- Retrospective Hair Cortisol Concentrations from Pretreatment to Early Recovery in Alcohol Use Disorder.Alcohol and alcoholism (Oxford, Oxfordshire) · 2021Article
- Using claws to compare reproduction, stress and diet of female bearded and ringed seals in the Bering and Chukchi seas, Alaska, between 1953-1968 and 1998-2014.Conservation physiology · 2021Article
- Inter- and intra-specific variation in hair cortisol concentrations of Neotropical bats.Conservation physiology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Cortisol has major impacts upon a range of physiological homeostatic mechanisms and plays an important role in stress, anxiety and depression. Although traditionally described as being solely synthesised via the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, recent animal and human studies indicate that cortisol may also be synthesised via a functionally-equivalent 'peripheral' HPA-like process within the skin, principally within hair follicles, melanocytes, epidermal melanocytes and dermal fibroblasts. Current data indicate that basal levels of cortisol within hair vary across body regions, show diurnal variation effects, respond to the onset and cessation of environmental stressors, and may demonstrate some degree of localisation in those responses. There are conflicting data regarding the presence of variability in cortisol concentrations across the length of the hair shaft, thus challenging the suggestion that hair cortisol may be used as a historical biomarker of stress and questioning the primary origin of cortisol in hair. The need to comprehensively 'map' the hair cortisol response for age, gender, diurnal rhythm and responsivity to stressor type is discussed, plus the major issue of if, and how, the peripheral and central HPA systems communicate.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.