Adverse early life experiences, such as child maltreatment, shapes hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity. The impact of social context is often probed through laboratory stress reactivity, yet child maltreatment is a severe form of chronic stress that recalibrates even stable or relatively inflexible stress systems such as cortisol’s diurnal rhythm. This study was designed to determine how different social contexts, which place divergent demands on children, shape cortisol’s diurnal rhythm. Participants include 120 adolescents (9–14 years), including 42 youth with substantiated child physical abuse. Up to 32 saliva samples were obtained in the laboratory, on days youth stayed home, and on school days. A 3-level hierarchical linear model examined cortisol within each day and extracted the diurnal rhythm at level 1; across days at level 2; and between-individual differences in cortisol and its rhythm at level 3. While cortisol’s diurnal rhythm was flattened when youth were in the novel laboratory context, the impact of maltreatment was observed within the home context such that maltreated children had persistently flattened diurnal rhythms. The effect of maltreatment overlapped with current chronic interpersonal family stress. Results are consistent with the idea that maltreatment exerts a robust, detrimental impact on the HPA axis and are interpreted in the context of less flexibility and rhythmicity. The HPA axis adapts by encoding signifiers of relevant harsh or unpredictable environments, and the extreme stress of physical abuse in the family setting may be one of these environments which calibrates the developing child’s stress responsive system, even throughout a developmental stage in which the family takes on diminishing importance.

中文翻译：

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皮质醇的昼夜节律反映了儿童青春期逆境对神经生物学的影响

不良的早期生活经历，例如虐待儿童，会影响下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）的活动。社会背景的影响通常通过实验室压力反应来探讨，但虐待儿童是慢性压力的一种严重形式，它甚至可以重新调整稳定或相对不灵活的压力系统，例如皮质醇的昼夜节律。这项研究旨在确定不同的社会环境对儿童提出不同的要求，如何影响皮质醇的昼夜节律。参与者包括 120 名青少年（9-14 岁），其中包括 42 名被证实遭受过儿童身体虐待的青少年。在实验室、青少年呆在家里的日子和上学的日子里，我们采集了多达 32 个唾液样本。 3 级分层线性模型检查每天的皮质醇并提取第 1 级的昼夜节律；跨日处于 2 级；皮质醇及其节律在第 3 级的个体间差异。虽然当青少年处于新的实验室环境中时，皮质醇的昼夜节律变平，但在家庭环境中观察到虐待的影响，因此受虐待的儿童的昼夜节律持续变平。虐待的影响与当前长期的人际家庭压力重叠。结果与虐待对 HPA 轴产生强烈、有害影响的观点一致，并在灵活性和节律性较差的背景下进行解释。 HPA 轴通过编码相关恶劣或不可预测环境的能指来进行适应，家庭环境中身体虐待的极端压力可能是这些环境之一，它可以校准发育中儿童的压力反应系统，甚至在家庭采取的整个发展阶段也是如此。关于重要性递减。