Differences in hair cortisol to cortisone ratio between depressed and non-depressed adolescent women
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Research on stress has demonstrated that the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis contributes to major depressive disorder in youth. Hair glucocorticoids are key biological markers of chronic stress. We assessed group differences in hair cortisol and cortisone concentrations, and the cortisol/cortisone ratio between depressed adolescent women and a non-depressed comparison group. Further, within the depression group, we explored the contribution of symptom severity and clinical correlates of depression in relation to glucocorticoid concentrations. Hair samples of three centimeters for 74 adolescent women (41 in the depression group and 33 in the comparison group), aged between 12 and 19 years old, were analyzed. Depressive and anxiety symptoms were measured using the Beck Youth Inventory II and clinical correlates of depression were measured using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form and the Borderline Personality Features Scale for Children. No significant differences emerged between the depression group and the comparison group on hair cortisol or hair cortisone concentrations. However, groups differed significantly on the cortisol/cortisone ratio, a proposed proxy of 11-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase activity, with a higher ratio for the depression group. Within the depression group, neither symptom severity nor clinical correlates were associated with glucocorticoid concentrations. Although cross-sectional, our findings highlight the importance of future studies to test whether the group difference found in cortisol/cortisone ratio is the result of alterations in 11-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase enzymes (type 1 or 2) activity. Further research is thus needed to clarify the role of these enzymes in major depressive disorder in youth and to develop more targeted intervention strategies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".