Individual differences in latent trait cortisol (LTC): Implications for the onset and course of future depressive symptoms

Unique and interactive effects of threat and deprivation on latent trait cortisol among emerging adults

“…In addition, we examined whether the unique effects of threat and deprivation were modified by other cooccurring adversities. Emerging adulthood is a period of high risk for onsets of internalizing psychopathology, particularly for women (e.g., Benjet et al, 2016;Rohde et al, 2013), and LTC predicts internalizing psychopathology among early adolescents (Stroud et al, 2019) and depressive symptom onsets among emerging adults (in the present sample; Stroud et al, 2022). Thus, understanding whether threat and deprivation predict individual differences in HPA axis activity that persist into emerging adulthood, particularly among women, is particularly informative for prevention.…”

“…Thus, it may be that the combination of higher levels of threat adversity and lower/moderate levels of other types of adversities represents an early environment characterized by "moderate" chronic stress wherein repeated activation of the HPA axis in response to threat during early development shifts overtime to a "buffered pattern" (i.e., moderate downactivity of the HPA axis); such a pattern may no longer be adaptive in environments characterized by higher levels of threat and higher levels of other co-occurring adversities wherein a "vigilant pattern" may be adaptive (for a similar argument, see Peckins et al, 2020). However, this interpretation is speculative because: (1) lower LTC may not be associated with reduced reactivity (Stroud et al, 2022) as assumed here; and (2) "lower" across-wave LTC is relative to that of other individuals who comprise the present's study low-risk sample, and thus, may not reflect a "buffered" profile. Nonetheless, the present results underscore the importance of broadly examining the nature of early environment when examining the developmental implications of threat and deprivation.…”

“…Analyses were conducted in six steps. In step 1, we used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to model the three within-wave LTCs using the waking and 30-min postwaking samples from each collection day, followed by a second-order CFA to construct an across-wave LTC using the within-wave LTCs (e.g., Stroud et al, 2022). Model fit was assessed with the chi-square test (p-value > .05…”

“…To index individual differences in HPA axis activity, the LTC approach draws upon the correlations among cortisol samples collected across several days or waves in relation to the grand mean (e.g., Stroud et al., 2016a; Stroud et al., 2022). The cortisol samples are used as indicators on an LTC variable that captures the samples’ shared variance, thereby capturing predominately individual differences in HPA axis activity (e.g., Doane et al., 2015).…”

“…Consistent with prior work in this sample (e.g., Stroud et al., 2022), we used confirmatory factor analysis to model 3 within‐wave LTCs and one across‐wave LTC using the first two morning (waking, 30‐min postwaking). Based upon the DMAP and prior work (e.g., Busso et al., 2017; Peckins et al., 2020), we expected that threat, but not deprivation, would be uniquely associated with the across‐wave LTC using each quantification and that the association between the threat and the across‐wave LTC would be significantly greater than that between the deprivation and the across‐wave LTC.…”