European Journal of Psychotraumatology (Sep 2012)

Cortisol awakening response and cortisol/DHEA ratio associations with hippocampal volume in MDD

  • Owen M. Wolkowitz,
  • Jin Rowen,
  • Sara Mason,
  • Synthia H. Mellon,
  • Victor I. Reus,
  • Elissa S. Epel,
  • Heather M. Burke,
  • Rebecca Rosser,
  • John Coetzee,
  • Laura Mahan,
  • Michelle Coy,
  • J. Craig Nelson,
  • Steven P. Hamilton,
  • Sally Mendoza,
  • Michael W. Weiner,
  • Susanne Mueller

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v3i0.19409
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 0
pp. 1 – 1

Abstract

Read online

Prior studies of Hypothalamic-Pituatary-Adrenal (HPA) associations with hippocampal (HC) volume have yielded inconsistent results. This might be due to the use of basal cortisol rather than cortisol reactivity measures and to the use of cortisol in isolation from related steroids. Therefore, in this study, we assessed the relationship of HC volume to cortisol awakening responses (CARs) and to the ratio of cortisol/DHEA in depressed (MDD) subjects and healthy controls. We additionally assessed cortisol correlations with individual HC subfield volumes.A 4 Tesla T1 MR imaging was conducted for HC volume for 19 MDD subjects and 19 matched controls. Fasting morning serum was assayed for cortisol and DHEA. In addition, salivary samples were assayed for cortisol for 17 MDDs and 15 controls across 3 days: at Waking (Sample 1) and at +30 minutes after waking (Sample 2). The CAR is the difference between daily Sample 1 and Sample 2 salivary concentrations. The slope of the CARincrease was obtained by dividing the CAR by the actual length of time between the two sample collections. Serum cortisol was not significantly correlated with HC volume. However, in the MDD group, serum DHEA, a putative anti-glucocorticoid, was positively correlated with HC volume (p<0.04). In the combined sample and in the MDD group separately, the serum ratio of cortisol/DHEA was inversely correlated with HC volume (p<0.002 and p=0.009, respectively).The average CAR slope across all three days of collection was not significantly correlated with HC volume. However, consistent with reports that CAR reactivity is greatest on the first day of collection, CAR slopes on Day 1 were negatively correlated with total HC volume (p<0.02) and with CA1 subfield volume (p<0.05). Correlation coefficients were similar in the separate MDD and control groups but were not statistically significant, given the smaller sample sizes.This exploratory study (small sample with no correction for multiple comparisons) suggests that stimulated (e.g., CAR) cortisol levels and consideration of cortisol in relation to DHEA, are more likely to reveal significant correlations with HC volume. HC volume may be especially sensitive to stimulated peak levels of cortisol and to cortisol actions when unmitigated by DHEA actions.

Keywords