ArticleDevelopment and psychopathology2021
Life stress and cortisol reactivity: An exploratory analysis of the effects of stress exposure across life on HPA-axis functioning.
Article in Development and psychopathology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Exposure to community violence and biomarkers of allostatic load: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Psychological bulletin · 2025Pooled it
- Lead exposure, glucocorticoids, and physiological stress across the life course: A systematic review.Environmental pollution (Barking, Essex : 1987) · 2024Pooled it
- Does a Single Exercise Session Reduce the Reactivity to Acute Psychosocial Stress in Children?European journal of sport science · 2025Trial
- Impact of social exclusion on empathy in women with borderline personality disorder.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2023Trial
- Comparing childhood, chronic, and recent adversity on internalizing symptoms and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis functioning.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2026Article
- Antibiotics and the Endocrine System: Mechanisms, Adverse Effects, and Clinical Implications.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Stress and resilience: cortisol hypo-response to acute stress in non-resilient individuals.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2026Article
- Effects of Classical Music on Behavioral and Physiological Stress Markers in Socially Isolated Prairie Voles.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Article
- Trauma, Stress, and Reproductive Health: A Bio-Psycho-Social Perspective on Violence Exposure in Immigrant Women.Research in nursing & health · 2026Article
- Salivary cortisol reactivity to stress in pregnancy: A scoping review.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2026Article
- Intensity and exposure proximity as determinants of differential stress-related health outcomes.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Observational
- Neurodevelopmental effects of early life stress: PFC and cognition.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- A Scoping Review of the Impact of Theatre-Based Techniques in Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Simplifying Daily Cortisol Cycle Analysis: Validation and Benchmarking of the Cortisol Sine Score Against Cosinor and JTK_CYCLE models.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Article
- The double-edged sword effect of adverse childhood experiences forging adult stress into depression and anxiety.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Attachment orientation and platelet activity.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2025Article
- Cortisol Reactivity as a Moderator in the Relationship Between Home Chaos and Conduct Problems: Gender-Specific Evidence from Chinese Preschoolers.Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback · 2025Article
- Effects of Sociospatial Inequality on Exposure to Stress, Symptoms of Depression, and Cortisol Rhythms in Pregnancy.Journal of obstetric, gynecologic, and neonatal nursing : JOGNN · 2025Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Stressful experiences affect biological stress systems, such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Life stress can potentially alter regulation of the HPA axis and has been associated with poorer physical and mental health. Little, however, is known about the relative influence of stressors that are encountered at different developmental periods on acute stress reactions in adulthood. In this study, we explored three models of the influence of stress exposure on cortisol reactivity to a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) by leveraging 37 years of longitudinal data in a high-risk birth cohort (N = 112). The cumulative stress model suggests that accumulated stress across the lifespan leads to dysregulated reactivity, whereas the biological embedding model implicates early childhood as a critical period. The sensitization model assumes that dysregulation should only occur when stress is high in both early childhood and concurrently. All of the models predicted altered reactivity, but do not anticipate its exact form. We found support for both cumulative and biological embedding effects. However, when pitted against each other, early life stress predicted more blunted cortisol responses at age 37 over and above cumulative life stress. Additional analyses revealed that stress exposure in middle childhood also predicted more blunted cortisol reactivity.
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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.