ArticlePsychoneuroendocrinology2015
Youth offspring of mothers with posttraumatic stress disorder have altered stress reactivity in response to a laboratory stressor.
Article in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- An experimental test of the fetal programming hypothesis: Can we reduce child ontogenetic vulnerability to psychopathology by decreasing maternal depression?Development and psychopathology · 2018Trial
- Weaving Invisible Threads: The Impact of Caregiver Trauma on Parenting and Child Brain Development.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Emotional Availability as a Moderator of Stress for Young Children and Parents in Two Diverse Early Head Start Samples.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2025Article
- Mothers' psychopathology and their adult offspring's cortisol level in a Rwandan sample.The South African journal of psychiatry : SAJP : the journal of the Society of Psychiatrists of South Africa · 2025Article
- Parental Early Life Maltreatment and Related Experiences in Treatment of Youth Anxiety Disorder.Child psychiatry and human development · 2024Article
- Inheritance of paternal lifestyles and exposures through sperm DNA methylation.Nature reviews. Urology · 2023Review
- Intergenerational effects of maternal PTSD: Roles of parenting stress and child sex.Psychological trauma : theory, research, practice and policy · 2022Article
- Elucidating the Neurobiologic Etiology of Comorbid PTSD and Substance Use Disorders.Brain sciences · 2022Article
- A Review on Epigenetic Inheritance of Experiences in Humans.Biochemical genetics · 2022Review
- Neuroendocrine and autonomic stress systems activity in young adults raised by mothers with mental health and substance abuse problems: A prospective cohort study.Developmental psychobiology · 2021Article
- A legacy of fear: Physiological evidence for intergenerational effects of trauma exposure on fear and safety signal learning among African Americans.Behavioural brain research · 2021Article
- Stress Across Generations: DNA Methylation as a Potential Mechanism Underlying Intergenerational Effects of Stress in Both Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Pre-clinical Predator Stress Rodent Models.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2019Article
- Intergenerational transmission of trauma effects: putative role of epigenetic mechanisms.World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) · 2018Article
- Elevated cortisol in healthy female adolescent offspring of mothers with posttraumatic stress disorder.Journal of anxiety disorders · 2016Article
- A biopsychosocial approach to primary hypothyroidism: treatment and harms data from a randomized controlled trial.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2015Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Parental Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), particularly maternal PTSD, confers risk for stress-related psychopathology among offspring. Altered hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning is one mechanism proposed to explain transmission of this intergenerational risk. Investigation of this mechanism has been largely limited to general stress response (e.g., diurnal cortisol), rather than reactivity in response to an acute stressor. We examined cortisol reactivity in response to a laboratory stressor among offspring of mothers with a lifetime diagnosis of PTSD (n=36) and age- and gender- matched control offspring of mothers without PTSD (n=36). Youth (67% girls; mean age=11.4, SD=2.6) participated in a developmentally sensitive laboratory stressor and had salivary cortisol assessed five times (one pre-stress, one immediate post-stress, and three recovery measures, spaced 15min apart). Results were consistent with the hypothesis that offspring of mothers with PTSD would exhibit a dysregulated, blunted cortisol reactivity profile, and control offspring would display the expected adaptive peak in cortisol response to challenge profile. Findings were maintained after controlling for youth traumatic event history, physical anxiety symptoms, and depression, as well as maternal depression. This finding contributes to the existing literature indicating that attenuated HPA axis functioning, inclusive of hyposecretion of cortisol in response to acute stress, is robust among youth of mothers with PTSD. Future research is warranted in elucidating cortisol reactivity as a link between maternal PTSD and stress-related psychopathology vulnerability among offspring.
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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.