Photo Credit: Михаил Руденко
The following is a summary of “Examining the relation among callous-unemotional traits and cortisol, alpha-amylase, and testosterone reactivity in the legal system involved young men,” published in the December 2023 issue of Endocrinology by Simmons et al.
Higher levels of callous-unemotional (CU) traits, like not having empathy, not feeling guilty or remorseful enough, and having a weak effect, were linked to more bad behavior and different ways of thinking and feeling. Previous research suggested that these links may be caused by problems with the body’s stress reactions. However, only a few studies looked at all of the bodily systems that work together to make a stress response.
For a study, researchers sought to determine the link between CU traits and hormones released by three systems: alpha-amylase from the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), testosterone from the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis, and cortisol from the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The goal was to determine how people with and without high CU traits react to acute stress. In particular, they used fixed effect regression modeling to examine how each biomarker changed within each person after the Trier Social Stress Test was given to 55 young men who had been in trouble with the law (Mage=22.84).
The results showed that people with low or normal CU traits significantly changed their cortisol, alpha-amylase, and testosterone levels after the stressor. However, people who had high amounts of CU didn’t see any big changes in their testosterone or cortisol levels. Also, people with many CU features have an uneven stress reaction. It meant that changes in alpha-amylase and testosterone levels were not linked to changes in cortisol levels. Overall, having high CU features was linked to a slowed response of cortisol and testosterone and an uneven reaction to stress. More research is needed to determine how this unique stress reaction affected behavior and care.
Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306453023003694