Systematic manipulations of the biological stress systems result in sex-specific compensatory stress responses and negative mood outcomes

Abstract

Women are twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with anxiety and mood disorders. One potential underlying mechanism is sex differences in physiological and psychological responses to stress; however, no studies to date have investigated this proposed mechanism experimentally. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled design, pharmacological challenges were administered to individually suppress the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, or the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) prior to stress exposure, to investigate sex differences in the resulting cross talk among the physiological and psychological stress responses. Sex-speciଏc compensatory patterns and psychological effects emerged when the stress systems were manipulated. Men demonstrated heightened SNS reactivity to stress when the HPA axis was suppressed, and greater HPA reactivity after SNS suppression. This ability to react appropriately to the stressor, even with one system, did not lead to signiଏcant negative mood effects. In women, higher baseline activation (but dampened reactivity to stress) of SNS or HPA was observed when the other system was suppressed. This was coupled with worsened mood in response to stress when either stress system was compromised. Our results indicate that men and women may be differentially sensitive to ଏuctuations of their stress systems. This might be a potential link that underlies the sexual dimorphism in vulnerability for psychopathology.

Social buffering of human fear is shaped by gender, social concern and the presence of real vs virtual agents

“…When experiencing the aversive sound alone, females showed higher SCRs compared to males (Fig. 2), consistent with previous findings indicating that females respond more strongly to aversive events than males (50)(51)(52). However, this gender difference in SCRs in the alone treatment groups cannot account for the differential effect of social concern on SCRs in the social treatment groups between females and males in Study 1, and between real and virtual social presence (comparison of Study 1…”

Prefrontal Responses during Proactive and Reactive Inhibition Are Differentially Impacted by Stress in Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa

“…Subjective stress ratings were collected immediately preinduction and postinduction, and these served to validate the stress manipulation. As psychological stress is inherently grounded in one's subjective experience of the stressor, self-report ratings were viewed as the primary index of stress rather than physiological correlates, which vary substantially across sexes (e.g., cortisol) and remain poorly characterized in women ( Kajantie and Phillips, 2006 ; Ali et al, 2020 ). Details of the task structure have been described previously ( Westwater et al, 2020 ) and are summarized in the following sections.…”

Does Stress Make Us More—or Less—Prosocial? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Acute Stress on Prosocial Behaviours Using Economic Games.

“…This might indicate that "stress" per se-that is the experience of an aversive situation-is pertinent for changes in social behaviour, including perceptions about the stressful situation (i.e., more or less social) and the participants' own perceived agency. This further highlights the idea that the acute stress response extends beyond just the activation of one system (e.g., cortisol response), but rather represents an intricate interplay of the various systems involved (Ali et al, 2020), and should be considered more holistically. Thus, the different stress systems, and potentially their interactions, need to be considered when evaluating the effects of acute stress on social behaviours.…”