How did adolescents who experienced maltreatment respond to social stress?

Details

Disruptions in the development of stress response systems have been proposed as a link between child maltreatment and psychopathology. Existing theories predict heightened sympathetic nervous system reactivity after maltreatment, but the evidence is inconsistent. The researchers proposed a new framework based on the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat. They predicted that, during a socially evaluated stressor, maltreated adolescents would show a threat pattern: sympathetic nervous system activation paired with elevated vascular resistance and blunted cardiac output (CO) reactivity.

The study included 168 adolescents with a mean age of 14.9 years. Recruitment targeted maltreated adolescents, and 38.2% of participants had experienced maltreatment. Researchers collected electrocardiogram, impedance cardiography and blood pressure measures at rest and during an evaluated social stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test. They calculated pre-ejection period (PEP), CO and total peripheral resistance reactivity during task preparation, speech delivery and verbal mental arithmetic. They also assessed internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

Maltreatment was unrelated to PEP reactivity during preparation or speech, but maltreated adolescents had reduced PEP reactivity during the math task. Maltreatment exposure and severity were associated with significantly reduced CO reactivity during every part of the stress task and were marginally associated with elevated total peripheral resistance reactivity. The abstract reports exposure statistics of F(1,145) = 3.8–9.4, p = .053–<.001, and severity statistics of β = -0.10–0.12, p = .030–.007; for peripheral resistance it also reports β = 0.07–0.11 and p = .11–.009. Threat reactivity was positively associated with externalizing symptoms.

The researchers concluded that child maltreatment was associated with a dysregulated physiological reactivity pattern consistent with theoretical accounts of threat, a pattern not previously examined in relation to maltreatment. They suggested that stress reactivity may be more nuanced than current theoretical models predict.