Experiencing acute and chronic stress can contribute to adverse health outcomes. Responses to acute stress differ between individuals (i.e., stress reactivity) and the experience of chronic stress has been discussed to be associated with acute stress responses and stress recovery. This study thus aims to investigate whether hair cortisol concentration (HCC), being an indicator for hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis activity over a prolonged period of time, is associated with acute stress responses and recovery in a sample of medical students. From July 2020 to July 2021, medical students (n = 54) underwent a virtual-reality Trier Social Stress Test in which their blood pressure and heart rate variability (HRV) were measured, and hair samples were taken to determine HCC. Piecewise linear growth analyses were used to investigate whether HCC (categorized into low, medium and high levels) is associated with acute stress responses and recovery regarding blood pressure and HRV. Significant interaction effects in piecewise linear growth analyses showed that participants with higher levels of HCC had lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure responses compared to participants with medium levels of HCC. No significant interaction effects were observed for HRV responses or for recovery measures. The study suggests that higher levels of HCC are associated with a lower cardiovascular response in terms of blood pressure to an acute stressor in medical students. Therefore, long-term HPA-axis activity may contribute to different magnitudes of acute stress responses in the autonomic nervous system. As the shown lower blood pressure responses to acute stress in individuals with increased long-term HPA-axis activity may represent inadequate stress responses, these should be further studied in order to find out more about their interaction and potential subsequent disease risks.

中文翻译：

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德国医学生样本中头发皮质醇浓度及其与急性应激反应和恢复的关系

经历急性和慢性压力可能会导致不良的健康结果。个体对急性应激的反应不同（即应激反应性），并且慢性应激的经历已被讨论为与急性应激反应和应激恢复相关。因此，本研究旨在调查头发皮质醇浓度（HCC）作为下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴长期活动的指标，是否与医学生样本的急性应激反应和恢复相关。从 2020 年 7 月到 2021 年 7 月，医学生 (n = 54) 接受了虚拟现实特里尔社会压力测试，测量他们的血压和心率变异性 (HRV)，并采集头发样本以确定 HCC。使用分段线性增长分析来研究 HCC（分为低、中和高水平）是否与血压和 HRV 的急性应激反应和恢复相关。分段线性增长分析中显着的交互作用表明，与中等 HCC 水平的参与者相比，HCC 水平较高的参与者的收缩压和舒张压反应较低。对于 HRV 反应或恢复措施，没有观察到显着的相互作用效应。该研究表明，肝癌水平较高与医学生血压对急性应激源的心血管反应较低有关。因此，长期的 HPA 轴活动可能会导致自主神经系统不同程度的急性应激反应。由于长期 HPA 轴活动增加的个体对急性应激的血压反应较低，可能代表应激反应不足，因此应进一步研究这些反应，以更多地了解它们之间的相互作用和潜在的后续疾病风险。