ABSTRACT Sex differences in anxiety‐like behavior are influenced by gonadal steroids, yet the contribution of early postnatal androgen signaling and testosterone metabolic pathways to the long‐term organization of these behaviors remains unclear. Wistar male and female rats received daily s.c. injections from postnatal day (P) 1 to P5 of vehicle, flutamide, letrozole, or finasteride. In young adult animals, locomotor activity and anxiety‐like behavior were evaluated via the open field test (OFT) and elevated plus maze (EPM). Females showed higher locomotor activity than males in both tests. Control females showed a less anxiety‐like profile than control males in the EPM. Flutamide treatment abolished sex differences in EPM open‐arm anxiety‐related measures and increased the number of freezing episodes and their duration in the OFT. However, finasteride treatment preserved the sex differences observed in the control groups in anxiety‐like measures. Finally, aromatase inhibition abolished sex differences in anxiety‐like behavior and induced an anxiolytic‐like effect in males, as indicated by increased open‐arm entries relative to control males. These findings indicate that androgen‐related pathways during early postnatal life shape adult anxiety‐like behavior in a sex‐dependent and pathway‐dependent manner and highlight aromatization as a key mechanism in the organization of EPM behavioral outcomes in males.
Surgery is an anxiety-provoking event, but there are individual differences in the magnitude of experienced anxiety. The objective of this study was to identify patterns of children's preoperative anxiety, its predictors, and perioperative outcomes. The sample included 171 children (Mage = 9.95 years) undergoing elective surgery. We derived groups of children's anxiety based on multiple indicators (i.e., self-report, heart rate, and frontal brain EEG activity) during a preoperative visit and on the day of surgery. Parents and children reported on children's temperament, children's behavior was coded in the operating room, and postoperative pain ratings were collected. Two latent profiles of children were identified, including a subset with relatively average anxious responses across indicators (74%) and a subset with relatively heightened anxious responses across indicators (26%). Children in the heightened anxiety subgroup had higher levels of temperamental shyness, displayed greater observed distress behaviors (e.g., resistance to anesthesia, screaming) upon operating room entry, and tended to have higher levels of postoperative pain compared to children in the average anxiety subgroup. These results reveal child-level predictors and perioperative outcomes associated with the experience of elevated anxiety in the surgical context.
Evolutionary-developmental theories of stress responsivity contend that the in utero environment shapes offspring biobehavioral regulation in a manner that promotes postnatal functioning. To elucidate how the prenatal environment influences stress regulation, this study tested associations of maternal psychological distress and inflammation during pregnancy, based on both levels and changes over time, with infant behavioral stress regulation (n = 118). In early, mid, and late pregnancy, mothers reported on depressive and anxiety symptoms and completed blood draws that were assayed for pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, TNF-⍺). When infants were 1 month old, research staff administered a heel stick blood draw and coded infant behavioral responses. Greater increases in maternal depressive symptoms and IL-6 from early to late pregnancy were associated with greater behavioral reactivity to and recovery from the heel stick. Conversely, higher overall levels of IL-6 predicted lower infant behavioral arousal. Maternal anxiety symptoms during pregnancy did not directly predict infant behavioral regulation, but there was evidence that overall levels of prenatal anxiety predicted infant behavior indirectly via IL-6. Anxiety symptom levels were associated with TNF-⍺. Findings add to evidence on prenatal origins of offspring behavioral regulation and suggest that changes in psychobiological processes over the course of pregnancy may distinctly predict infant outcomes.
Human perceptual abilities evolve throughout development, particularly with regard to processing complex stimuli. While many studies have investigated age-related changes in olfactory sensitivity, none have examined how developmental stages influence the perception of odor mixtures at the elemental and configural levels. In this study, we evaluated how children, teenagers, and adults (mean ages: 10, 15, and 39 years) perceive odor mixtures known to trigger either elemental or configural processing in adults. Two binary mixtures (AB and AB') and two senary mixtures (RC and RC'), known to elicit distinct perceptual strategies in adults, were evaluated using three tasks: typicality rating, target detection, and complexity evaluation. Results showed that perception of the senary mixtures remained consistent across age groups, indicating stable processing of these complex mixtures. In contrast, age-related differences emerged for the binary mixtures. Children perceived AB as less complex than AB', but did not rate it as more typical of the configural odor, whereas adults rated AB as more typical of this odor than AB' and tended to show reduced access to mixture components in binary mixtures, with teenagers displaying an intermediate profile. Overall, these findings suggest developmental changes in odor mixture processing, consistent with a progressive shift from more elemental to more configural olfactory strategies, particularly for mixtures of lower chemical complexity.
