ArticleJournal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines2025
Psychoneuroendocrine stress response in female and male youth with major depressive disorder.
Article in Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The association between self-perceived stress and ischemic stroke risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Pooled it
- Global Burden and Inequalities in Mental Disorders Across Countries and Territories: 1990 to 2021.Alpha psychiatry · 2026Article
- Relationship of oxytocin and cortisol response to psychosocial stress in children and adolescents with anxiety disorders.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The influence of psychosocial stress on functional connectivity and neuroendocrine markers in adolescents with depressive and comorbid anxiety disorders: a study protocol.BMC psychiatry · 2025Article
- Advances in the prevalence and treatment of depression for adolescents: a review.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundExposure to psychosocial stress is one of the strongest risk factors for major depressive disorder (MDD) in youth, but underlying neurobiological mechanisms are poorly understood. Previous studies on the neuroendocrine stress response in youth with MDD are scarce, limited to cortisol, and rarely considered sex differences. Due to puberty-associated neuroendocrine transitions increasing the risk for MDD onset in adolescence, this study aimed to investigate sex-specific stress responses of stress and sex hormones as well as of neuropeptides.
methodsIn 103 pubertal youths with MDD and 72 healthy controls (HCs; 62% females, 12-18 years), psychological stress as well as salivary cortisol, testosterone, and oxytocin reactivity to a standardized psychosocial stress test (Trier Social Stress Test, TSST) were assessed. Effects of group and sex, and their interactions were analyzed using hierarchical linear models, while controlling for potentially confounding factors (such as age and pubertal status).
resultsFemales and males with MDD showed a stronger psychological stress response than HCs. In contrast, both female and male youth with MDD showed blunted cortisol, testosterone, and oxytocin stress responses compared to HCs. In addition, baseline testosterone was elevated in MDD compared to HCs.
conclusionsResults indicate a discrepant stress reactivity in youth with MDD, with increased psychological, but decreased neuroendocrine responses to psychosocial stress. Blunted neuroendocrine stress responses in youth with MDD were found across different neuroendocrine systems and in both females and males with MDD. These novel findings point to a fundamentally changed stress response in youth with MDD irrespective of sex, which may influence successful stress regulation in the affected adolescents.
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