Research report Infants at familial risk for depression show a distinct pattern of cortisol response to experimental challenge Cerith S Waters a , Stephanie van Goozen a , Rebecca Phillips a , Naomi Swift a , Sarah-Louise Hurst a , Lisa Mundy b , Roland Jones a , Ian Jones a , Ian Goodyer c , Dale F. Hay a,n a Cardiff University, UK b Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia c University of Cambridge, UK article info Article history: Received 11 October 2012 Received in revised form 29 April 2013 Accepted 29 April 2013 Keywords: Maternal depression Cortisol Infants Intergenerational transmission Foetal programming Prospective longitudinal design abstract Background: The aim of the study was to examine the link between maternal depression and the infant's HPA axis functioning in relation to a sequence of emotional challenges at 12 months postpartum, while controlling for maternal anxiety disorder and general sociodemographic risk. Method: Two hundred and fifty-seven infants whose mothers had been interviewed in pregnancy, as part of a prospective longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of U.K. families, were individually tested in the laboratory and then observed during a simulated birthday party scenario. Three cortisol samples were taken over the course of 1½ h of afternoon testing. Results: The cortisol levels of infants whose mothers had no history of depression decreased significantly after individual testing, and rose again significantly in response to the birthday party challenge. In contrast, infants whose mothers had been diagnosed with depression before conception, during pregnancy or in the first 6 months postpartum showed no decrease from the initially elevated levels at entry to the laboratory and a less marked increase in response to the party. Limitations: The study does not employ a traditional stress paradigm; instead it introduces a novel design to assess HPA axis functioning in relation to everyday emotional challenges. Conclusions: The findings suggest that altered responses to mildly challenging events in infancy may be a marker for infants’ familial risk for depressive illness. & 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. 1. Introduction Children of depressed mothers are at risk for depression (Rice et al., 2002), emotional problems (Essex et al., 2001; Goodman et al., 2011; Halligan et al., 2007), and antisocial behaviour (Kim- Cohen et al., 2005; Weissman et al., 2006). These well documented links between maternal depression and adverse offspring out- comes have led to the search for mechanisms that explain these associations. A growing body of evidence has identified abnorm- alities in the functioning of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis as a biological marker that may underpin the inter- generational transmission of psychopathology (Guerry and Hastings, 2011; Lopez-Duran et al., 2009). In particular, higher baseline cortisol values and an atypical response to laboratory- induced psychological stress have been observed in depressed adults and children (Burke et al., 2005; Bouma et al., 2011; Luby et al., 2003). Prospective longitudinal studies have shown that atypical HPA axis functioning predicts the onset of adolescent depression (Adam et al., 2010; Goodyer et al., 2003, 2009), and that a maternal lifetime history of depression is associated with elevated cortisol levels in offspring (Dougherty et al., 2009). However, fewer studies have examined whether atypical function- ing of the HPA axis is already evident among younger children whose mothers have a history of depression. Studies that have examined the functioning of the HPA axis among children with a maternal history of depression have focused on the timing of exposure to the mother's illness (Ashman et al., 2002; Diego et al., 2004). Some studies have focused on prenatal exposure to maternal depression in relation to infants’ HPA axis functioning (Field et al., 2004; Lundy et al., 1999), whereas other studies have focused on the postnatal exposure to maternal depres- sion and older children's HPA axis functioning (Ashman et al., 2002; Essex et al., 2002; Halligan et al., 2004). In general, maternal depression at either time point (during pregnancy or the postnatal period) is associated with elevated basal cortisol levels in offspring. However, studies that have found specific timing of exposure effects of maternal depression on children's HPA axis functioning have Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jad Journal of Affective Disorders 0165-0327/$ - see front matter & 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2013.04.054 n Correspondence to: School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Park Place, Cardiff, Wales CF10 3AT, UK. Tel.: +44 2920 876503; fax: +44 2920 874858. E-mail address: haydf@cardiff.ac.uk (D.F. Hay). Please cite this article as: Waters, C.S, et al., Infants at familial risk for depression show a distinct pattern of cortisol response to experimental challenge. Journal of Affective Disorders (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2013.04.054i Journal of Affective Disorders ∎ (∎∎∎∎) ∎∎∎–∎∎∎