{"doi":"10.31234/osf.io/ga82u","title":"Timing Sensitivity of Prenatal Cortisol Exposure and Neurocognitive Development","abstract":"Prenatal glucocorticoid exposure has been negatively associated with infant neurocognitive outcomes. However, questions remain about whether neurocognitive development is sensitive to cortisol exposure at specific gestational periods or if cortisol exposure is equally impactful across pregnancy. Participants were 253 mother-child dyads who participated in a prospective study recruited in the first trimester of pregnancy. Diurnal cortisol area under the curve was measured in maternal saliva samples collected across a single day within each trimester of pregnancy. Children (49.8% female, 61.6% White) completed the Bayley Mental Development Scales, Third Edition at 6, 12, and 24 months and completed three observational executive function tasks at 24 months. Structural equation models adjusting for sociodemographic covariates were used to test study hypotheses. Results indicated that first trimester diurnal cortisol was negatively associated with cognitive and language development at 12 months and inhibition at 24 months. Second trimester cortisol exposure was negatively associated with cognitive scores at 24 months. Associations were not reliably moderated by child sex. This study suggests that neurocognitive development is sensitive to prenatal glucocorticoid exposure as early as the first trimester. Findings underscore the importance of assessing prenatal exposures across the entirety of gestation in models of prenatal programming.","journal":"PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints)","year":2023,"id":412763,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9247,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":661951,"name":"Hannah R. Murphy","orcid":"0000-0001-6209-5883","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1105690,"name":"Molly Arnold","orcid":"0000-0002-8803-5480","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":734676,"name":"Zoe T. Duberstein","orcid":"0000-0002-6522-756X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":662684,"name":"Meghan Best","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":368417,"name":"Xing Qiu","orcid":"0000-0002-2330-3544","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":661950,"name":"Richard K. Miller","orcid":"0000-0002-6691-7538","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":228378,"name":"Emily S. Barrett","orcid":"0000-0001-9463-524X","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":271737,"name":"Thomas G. O’Connor","orcid":"0000-0002-8590-5057","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1193858,"name":"Sean R. Womack","orcid":"0000-0001-8271-2922","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":59,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:21:53.745400Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}