Assessments of stress typically involve either point samples (blood or saliva) reflecting a moment in time or state samples (urine of feces) reflecting several hours or a day. Currently, there is no way to assess chronic levels of stress without using repeated sampling procedures which are both time consuming, expensive, and possibly stressful. The purpose of this dissertation was three fold: (1) to develop a more chronic estimate of stress by measuring cortisol concentrations in hair, (2) to determine using this measure, how rhesus macaques responded to the prolonged stress of relocation, and (3) to determine the role of a proposed modulatory protein corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG) in measuring stress. Results demonstrate that cortisol can be quantified in hair and that stress reactivity can also be measured in hair. Rhesus monkeys responded to a major life stress (relocation) with a significant increase in cortisol in both hair and serum and with substantial behavioral changes. CBG concentrations failed to show alteration initially following relocation, however a significant increase was observed one year later. The findings demonstrate the importance of the cortisol/CBG relationship during a prolonged stress paradigm. Our data also provide further evidence that the free cortisol index (cortisol:CBG ratio) may be a better indicator of stress reactivity when compared to the commonly used serum cortisol concentrations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-4320 |
| Date | 01 January 2006 |
| Creators | Davenport, Matthew D |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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