During one of my trips down the research rabbit hole, I found some great work by Jacqueline Bruce, Phil Fisher, and colleagues. In a 2009 study, they set out to determine if the adverse experiences of preschool-age foster children had an effect on the functioning of the stress-response system, specifically the HPA axis. To do this, they analyzed the cortisol levels of 117 foster kids and 60 low-income kids who were not maltreated. What they found reinforced what I suspected about my own patients: the foster kids showed dysregulated cortisol levels in comparison to the kids who had not
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