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Updated: Mar 11, 2026

Extraction and Analysis of Cortisol from Human and Monkey Hair
Published on: January 24, 2014
Association between hair cortisol concentration and perceived stress in female methamphetamine addicts
Liuna Geng1, Peng Xiang1, Jin Yang2
1Department of Psychology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
Objective:
The present study aims to explore whether hair cortisol concentration is associated with explicit stress or implicit stress in female methamphetamine addicts.
Methods:
Hair samples were collected from 51 female methamphetamine addicts from inpatient addiction treatment programs. Perceived stress was assessed by both explicit and implicit measures through the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and the Implicit Association Test (IAT), respectively.
Results:
The positive relationship between hair cortisol concentration with D-scores of the IAT reached statistically significant difference. A marginal correlation between hair cortisol concentration and scores of the PSS was observed. Additionally, linear regression analysis indicated that D-scores of the IAT are strongly predictive of hair cortisol concentration.
Conclusion:
Hair cortisol concentration is strongly related to implicit stress but only weakly related with explicit stress.
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