@article{PlenerZohselHohmetal.2017, author = {Plener, Paul L. and Zohsel, Katrin and Hohm, Erika and Buchmann, Arlette F. and Banaschewski, T. and Zimmermann, Ulrich S. and Laucht, Manfred}, title = {Lower cortisol level in response to a psychosocial stressor in young females with self-harm}, series = {Psychoneuroendocrinology}, volume = {76}, journal = {Psychoneuroendocrinology}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0306-4530}, doi = {10.1016/j.psyneuen.2016.11.009}, pages = {84 -- 87}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Background: Self-harm is highly prevalent in adolescence, often serving an emotion regulation function. Social stressors such as bullying are associated with self-harm. The neurobiological background of the relationship between social stressors and self-harm needs to be further understood to inform prevention and therapy. Methods: Participants were members of an epidemiological cohort study. 130 female participants underwent the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) at age 19. Of them, 21 reported a history of self-harm as assessed by the Youth Self Report. Psychiatric diagnoses were recorded. Results: Participants with a history of self-harm showed significantly lower blood cortisol levels throughout the TSST. Early psychosocial adversity did not significantly differ between groups with and without self-harm, with self-harming participants reporting more childhood adversities. Conclusion: These results add to the limited field of studies showing an altered HPA axis activity in females with self-harm. Future studies need to address the causal mechanisms behind this association.}, language = {en} } @article{HolzBoeckerSchlierBuchmannetal.2017, author = {Holz, Nathalie E. and Boecker-Schlier, Regina and Buchmann, Arlette F. and Blomeyer, Dorothea and Jennen-Steinmetz, Christine and Baumeister, Sarah and Plichta, Michael M. and Cattrell, Anna and Schumann, Gunter and Esser, G{\"u}nter and Schmidt, Martin and Buitelaar, Jan and Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas and Banaschewski, Tobias and Brandeis, Daniel and Laucht, Manfred}, title = {Ventral striatum and amygdala activity as convergence sites for early adversity and conduct disorder}, series = {Frontiers in human neuroscience}, volume = {12}, journal = {Frontiers in human neuroscience}, number = {2}, publisher = {Oxford Univ. Press}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {1749-5016}, doi = {10.1093/scan/nsw120}, pages = {261 -- 272}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Childhood family adversity (CFA) increases the risk for conduct disorder (CD) and has been associated with alterations in regions of affective processing like ventral striatum (VS) and amygdala. However, no study so far has demonstrated neural converging effects of CFA and CD in the same sample. At age 25 years, functional MRI data during two affective tasks, i.e. a reward (N = 171) and a face-matching paradigm (N = 181) and anatomical scans (N = 181) were acquired in right-handed currently healthy participants of an epidemiological study followed since birth. CFA during childhood was determined using a standardized parent interview. Disruptive behaviors and CD diagnoses during childhood and adolescence were obtained by diagnostic interview (2-19 years), temperamental reward dependence was assessed by questionnaire (15 and 19 years). CFA predicted increased CD and amygdala volume. Both exposure to CFA and CD were associated with a decreased VS response during reward anticipation and blunted amygdala activity during face-matching. CD mediated the effect of CFA on brain activity. Temperamental reward dependence was negatively correlated with CFA and CD and positively with VS activity. These findings underline the detrimental effects of CFA on the offspring's affective processing and support the importance of early postnatal intervention programs aiming to reduce childhood adversity factors.}, language = {en} }