Elsevier

Physiology & Behavior

Volume 242, 1 December 2021, 113618
Physiology & Behavior

Habituation of salivary cortisol and cardiovascular reactivity to a repeated real-life and virtual reality Trier Social Stress Test

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2021.113618Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • A repeated real and VR-TSST were conducted and compared to a placebo TSST.

  • TSST responses were investigated using multimodal assessment of stress markers.

  • Stronger stress reactivity in real and VR-TSST compared to control at first visit.

  • Repeated real and VR-TSST exposure showed a habituation effect of stress reactivity.

  • There was no effect of social presence on stress reactivity.

Abstract

Background

Although the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) constitutes a valid paradigm for social stress induction, less is known about the effects of a virtual reality (VR) TSST on short- and long-term hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and sympathetic-adreno-medullar (SAM) axis responses. Hence, this study set out to evaluate reactivity and habituation of self-reported stress and HPA and SAM reactivity in a real TSST and VR-TSST when compared to a placebo TSST.

Method

Sixty-eight healthy young adults (50% female) were randomly assigned to either a real TSST, a VR-TSST, or a placebo TSST, all of which were conducted three times (one day and one week post initial exposure). Social presence, self-reported stress, salivary cortisol, heart rate (HR), and heart rate variability (HRV) were analyzed using ANOVAs and multilevel models.

Findings

On the first exposure, both the real and VR-TSST showed significantly stronger cortisol and cardiovascular responses than the placebo. On the second visit, the cortisol response was still significantly high—and the HRV response low—for the real and VR-TSST. The third visit resulted in HR, HRV, and cortisol responses comparable to the placebo group. Furthermore, the real TSST induced more self-reported stress than the placebo on all three visits, the VR-TSST only on the first two visits. Social presence was stable across conditions and had no association with stress markers.

Conclusion

These findings imply that the replicability of stress exposures at shorter intervals seems problematic for the traditional TSST, and for the VR-TSST.

Keywords

Virtual reality
TSST
Salivary cortisol
Heart rate
Social Presence
Psychosocial Stressor

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