Excessive hair cortisol concentration as an indicator of psychological disorders in children

Cortisol in hair is a new biomarker assessing long-term hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity, which is related to emotion regulation. We compare hair cortisol concentrations (HCC), in clinically referred children with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) (n = 19), children with other types of psychological disorders (n = 48), and healthy subjects (n = 36). We also investigate the association between HCC and irritability, age, and sex. Our results show that children with DMDD or other types of psychological disorders have higher HCC than healthy subjects, p < .001, η_p² = .39. No difference between children with DMDD and those with other types of psychological disorders was found, p = .91, nor an association between HCC and irritability in the clinical sample, p = .32. We found a significant negative correlation between HCC and age in those with DMDD, r = -0.54, p < .05, but not in the normative sample, r = -0.20, p = .25. No differences in HCC between girls and boys were found in the normative sample, p = .49. Children in need of psychological treatment, including those with DMDD, seem to have dysregulated HPA-axis activity over time. Excessive accumulated cortisol concentrations in hair could be an indicator of a psychological disorder in children.