ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Findings concerning the relationship between maternal prenatal and child cortisol concentrations are inconsistent. This study examined whether the influence of an objective traumatic stressor during pregnancy, distance from a natural flood disaster, moderated the association between prenatal maternal diurnal cortisol and 9-year old offspring hair cortisol concentrations. METHODS: Data were collected from 56 of the mothers who took part in a study of flood-related pregnancy outcomes in 2009 and their children. Data included distance of the maternal home from evacuation areas, four maternal saliva cortisol assessments (waking, 30 min after waking, afternoon, and before bed) provided within 3-months of the flood crest and child hair samples to assess cortisol secretion over the past month. RESULTS: There was a significant interaction between proximity to flooding during pregnancy and maternal cortisol AUC predicting child hair cortisol, after controlling for maternal age, gestational age at cortisol sampling, sex of the child, current socioeconomic status and current maternal stress. At greater distance from flooding (lower stress conditions) there was a non-statistically significant positive association between maternal cortisol and child cortisol. In contrast, living closer to flooding (higher stress conditions) produced a significant negative association between maternal and child cortisol. CONCLUSION: Experiencing a traumatic stressor during pregnancy may alter maternal-fetal programming of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. The direct threat of flooding led to offspring cortisol concentrations that resembled cortisol production seen in mothers with symptoms of PTSD and their offspring. This alteration is evident in nine-year-old offspring and may help explain inconsistencies in the previous literature.
Subject(s)
Hydrocortisone/analysis , Stress Disorders, Traumatic/metabolism , Stress, Psychological/metabolism , Child , Female , Fetal Development/drug effects , Fetal Development/physiology , Follow-Up Studies , Forecasting , Hair/chemistry , Humans , Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System/metabolism , Male , Pituitary-Adrenal System/metabolism , Pregnancy , Pregnancy Outcome/psychology , Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects/metabolism , Stress Disorders, Traumatic/physiopathology , Stress, Psychological/psychologyABSTRACT
Inhibition of return (IOR) is a phenomenon of attentional orienting that is indexed by slower responses to targets presented at previously attended locations. The purpose of this study was to examine adult age differences in the distribution of IOR to multiple locations. In three experiments, young adults (ages 18-30 years) and older adults (ages 60-87 years) completed an IOR task that varied in the number of simultaneous onset cues (one to seven) and the number of display locations (four or eight). Analyses were conducted to explore whether IOR patterns were most consistent with limited inhibitory resources, with regional distribution of inhibition, or with vector averaging of cues. The IOR effects were most consistent with vector averaging, such that multiple cues initiated a directional gradient of inhibition centered on the average direction of the cues. The IOR patterns varied minimally with age, consistent with the conclusion that older adults and young adults distributed inhibition in a similar manner.
Subject(s)
Aging/psychology , Attention , Inhibition, Psychological , Orientation , Pattern Recognition, Visual , Saccades , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Cues , Female , Humans , Male , Memory, Short-Term , Middle Aged , Reaction Time , Young AdultABSTRACT
To assess age differences in attention-emotion interactions, the authors asked young adults (ages 18-33 years) and older adults (ages 60-80 years) to identify target words in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task. The second of two target words was neutral or emotional in content (positive in Experiment 1, negative in Experiment 2). In general, the ability to identify targets from a word stream declined with age. Age differences specific to the attentional blink were greatly reduced when baseline detection accuracy was equated between groups. With regard to emotion effects, older adults showed enhanced identification of both positive and negative words relative to neutral words, whereas young adults showed enhanced identification of positive words and reduced identification of negative words. Together these findings suggest that the nature of attention-emotion interactions changes with age, but there was little support for a motivational shift consistent with emotional regulation goals at an early stage of cognitive processing.
Subject(s)
Aging/psychology , Attentional Blink , Emotions , Verbal Learning , Visual Perception , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Color Perception , Female , Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Reading , Recognition, Psychology , Retention, Psychology , Serial Learning , Young AdultABSTRACT
The purpose of this study was to determine whether 2 forms of attentional inhibition, inhibition of return (IOR) and inhibitory tagging, are differentially affected by the aging process. The authors tested 24 younger adults (mean age = 22 years) and 24 older adults (mean age = 69 years) on a combined IOR and Stroop task (Vivas & Fuentes, 2001). As predicted, younger adults' performance was consistent with inhibitory tagging of objects at inhibited locations. Although older adults demonstrated intact IOR, there was no evidence of inhibitory tagging. The results suggest that age deficits in inhibition are selective.
