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Environmental determinants of physiological reactivity to stress: The interacting effects of early life deprivation, caregiving quality, and stressful life events

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2021

Mark Wade ,
Margaret A. Sheridan ,
Charles H. Zeanah ,
Nathan A. Fox ,
Charles A. Nelson  and
Katie A. McLaughlin
Mark Wade*
Affiliation:
Deparment of Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Margaret A. Sheridan
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Charles H. Zeanah
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA, USA
Nathan A. Fox
Affiliation:
Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
Charles A. Nelson
Affiliation:
Boston Children's Hospital of Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA
Katie A. McLaughlin
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
*
Author for Correspondence: Mark Wade, PhD, Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON, Canada, M5S1V6; E-mail: m.wade@utoronto.ca
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Abstract

Children who spend their early lives in institutions experience profound psychosocial deprivation that is associated with altered stress response system development. Here, we used data from a longitudinal randomized controlled trial of foster care for institutionally reared children to examine whether caregiving quality and stressful life events (SLEs) in early adolescence (age 12) influence patterns of hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) reactivity. Controlling for the effect of institutional care, higher caregiving quality at age 12 was associated with heightened cortisol and SNS reactivity. However, moderation analysis revealed that the latter effect was only observed among never-institutionalized children, whereas ever-institutionalized children demonstrated a persistently blunted SNS response regardless of recent caregiving quality. Among institutionally reared children, SLEs interacted with prior random assignment to foster care, such that those placed in foster care early in development had a SNS response that approximated never-institutionalized children when SLEs at age 12 were low. In contrast, SNS reactivity was persistently blunted among those with prolonged deprivation, regardless of recent SLEs. Early-life deprivation is associated with persistent blunting of stress response systems, but normalization may be achievable if SLEs are limited following placement into enriched family-based care.

Keywords

developmental psychobiologyHPA-axisinstitutional rearingneglectstress reactivitysympathetic nervous system
Type
Special Section 2: Early Adversity and Development: Contributions from the Field
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 32 , Special Issue 5: Early Adversity, Stress, and Neurobehavioral Development: Honoring Megan R. Gunnar's Contributions to Developmental Science , December 2020 , pp. 1732 - 1742
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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