Sex differences in associations between hair glucocorticoids and internalizing symptoms in adolescents
Bibliographic record
Abstract
From adolescence onwards, internalizing symptoms, such as depressive and anxiety symptoms, are twice as prevalent in adolescent girls than boys. Dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which controls production and regulation of glucocorticoids (cortisol and cortisone), is linked to depressive and anxiety symptoms. Findings on hair cortisol, cortisone and the cortisol/cortisone ratio in relation to these symptoms have been inconsistent, particularly in adolescent community samples. The ratio provides an indication of the active versus inactive balance of cortisol concentrations, as a proxy of 11-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase enzymes. In addition, few studies have investigated whether these associations are the same for adolescent girls and boys. Hair samples of 64 adolescent girls and 59 adolescent boys (aged between 14 and 15 years old) were analyzed using the liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) extraction method. Internalizing symptoms were measured via validated self-reported online questionnaires. For adolescent boys, no associations between hair glucocorticoids and depressive or anxiety symptoms were found. For adolescent girls, the analyses revealed a positive association between hair cortisone concentrations and depressive symptoms. Our findings highlight significant sex differences in the mechanisms that might operate between glucocorticoid concentrations and internalizing symptoms. Future longitudinal studies could test the predictive, sex-dependent effect of hair glucocorticoids concentrations during adolescence on the development of internalizing disorders in adulthood. Gaining a deeper understanding of HPA axis functioning could help to identify youth who are at greater risk of developing stress-related psychopathologies.
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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 | 0.000 | 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".