Research on stress and adversity as predictors of health outcomes has generally relied two sources of salient data: a) reports of acute and chronic stressors, which are liable to subjectivity, poor inter-rater reliability, and memory biases; and b) measures of biological reactivity to laboratory challenges, which Represent only 'snapshots' of physiological states over short periods of time. Recent work, on the other hand, suggests that the 'wear and tear' of stressors and adaptations integrated over time may be the singularly best predictor of health and disease. What are now urgently needed are methodological innovations that operationalize and index cumulative biological adaptation to adversity over time. Such need is most urgent and compelling in studies of adverse social conditions in young children, where evidence suggests that effects of stress are strong and lasting, where self-reports are impossible, and where measures of biological reactivity are logistically and ethically problematic. Thus, the accurate appraisal of childhood stressful experience awaits a measure of cumulative biological impact on target tissues. In this supplemental application to a funded R01 award (1R01MH 62320-01 ), we propose to study deciduous teeth as a tissue record of corticotropic releasing hormone (CRH) system activation over the first 5-6 years of life. The study's objective is to examine exfoliated teeth for dental biomarkers from a subset of a 300-child study of mental and physical health correlates of social position within kindergarten peer hierarchies. The exfoliated deciduous teeth of children with high and low profiles of basal and reactive salivary cortisol secretion will be examined--using polarized light, electron, and atomic force microscopy, microradiograph, and infrared reflectance spectroscopy--to compare measures of micro anatomical dimensions, mineral density, and mechanical properties. The proposed research would assess the reliability and empirical validity of these measures as indicators of long term CRH system activation. ? ?
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