Poster #18 - Childhood Maltreatment History Predicts Mother's Trauma-Related Symptoms via HPA Axis Regulation With her Infant

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Biological Processes: Psychophysiology

Integrative Statement

The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is thought to act as a bridge that connects stressful or traumatic early life events to later psychological functioning. There is good evidence for individual components of this bridge, with research indicating that early life stress such as childhood maltreatment is related to HPA functioning (e.g. Carpenter, Shattuck, Tyrka, Geracioti, & Price, 2011) and that HPA functioning relates to psychological well-being (e.g. Heim & Nemeroff, 2001). However, there is strikingly little research that directly addresses the full pathway from early life stress to later psychological health via HPA functioning, especially within the context of interpersonal stress such as that within caregiving relationships. To understand the lasting impacts of childhood maltreatment, it may be particularly important to consider HPA axis responding to challenging interactions with one’s own child, and how this may feed into ongoing psychological symptoms. In this study, we addressed this gap by testing the indirect effect of childhood maltreatment on women’s later adult trauma-related symptomatology via HPA axis responding to a stressor involving their own infant.

Between 3 and 18 months postnatal, 51 women participating in a longitudinal study of stress regulation were assessed 4 separate times. At the T1 assessment, mothers reported their history of maltreatment using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), and at each assessment they reported current psychological symptoms on the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD), and Trauma Symptoms Checklist (TSC-40). At the T3 (12 month postnatal) visit, mothers and their infants participated in an interpersonal stressor -- the Strange Situation task – and four saliva samples were collected for cortisol assay. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to estimate cortisol response trajectory components (intercepts, linear, and quadratic slopes). Indirect effects of childhood maltreatment on women’s T4 symptoms via these cortisol response components were tested using a Monte Carlo calculator (quantpsy.org). Effects were estimated while controlling for T1 symptoms in order to address the potential role of HPA axis function in symptom progression.

We found significant (p<.05) indirect effects of total childhood maltreatment on mothers’ anxiety symptoms, of emotional abuse on sexual trauma symptoms, and of physical abuse on total trauma symptoms, all via more negative cortisol quadratic slopes (corresponding to more pronounced stress task reactivity). This suggests that a history of childhood abuse predicts worsening maternal trauma-related symptoms via heightened cortisol reactivity during interactions with her infant. Implications for understanding long-term impacts of maltreatment and resolving inconsistencies in the existing literature on predictors and consequences of HPA axis dysregulation will be discussed.

Authors

• Stephanie Joann Kern, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Heidemarie Laurent, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author