Adjustment Disorder (SCL-90) And Cognition Ability Among Male And Female Tibetan Hanzu And Zangzu Freshmen And Association With Serum Oxytocin, Cortisol And Immunoglobulin

Many people moving and living in a new environment may develop number of psychological and emotional dysfunctions. This adjustment disorder (AD) caused by changes of living environment may be affected by different nationalities and cultures. It remains unclear whether male and female Tibetan Zang and Han youngsters show different levels of psychological and physiological disorders while they become college freshmen and leave home for a new living environment.We hypothesized that a substantial percentage of first-year college students would self-identify some symptoms of AD associated with their adjustment to college. A second hypothesis was that these self-identified stress symptoms would be similar with the predominant subthreshold symptoms of the nine subtypes of AD according to the scl-90 and would relate directly to factors associated with college adjustment. To test these hypotheses, using questionnaire and physiological measurement, the level of adjustment disorder and cognition of 200 healthy freshmen were assessed using symptom check list SCL-90 and Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. Serum levels of oxytocin (OXT), cortisol and immunoglobulin were also measured. Taken together, the symptoms of AD, cognitive capacity and physiological changes were investigated to explore and describe the differences of different ethnic groups of first-year college students adjusting to college during their first semester.Considering the different nationality of participants, the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) and SCL-90 were used. The Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices are generally considered to be good non-verbal indicators of general intelligence, It was used here as a measure of nonverbal intelligence differences. Characteristics of AD are the development of behavioral or emotional symptoms in response to a psychosocial or environmental stressor. The symptom checklist SCL-90 is an instrument for the measurement of psychological distress and certain aspects of psychopathology. Transitioning from high school to college is a major stressful social and psychological event for first-year students. Although going to college is considered a significant and positive step in life, it can challenge an individual's personal security, physical comfort, and ability to enjoy gratifying activities. Moving away to college forces students to establish new social support systems and to renegotiate previous relationships with family and friends back home. Aside from establishing new support systems, the new college environment can be intimidating and anxiety provoking for students for other reasons. Adjusting to college life is marked by significant challenges in academic, social, and emotional adjustment and how college students respond to these stressors can have major lifetime consequences.Recent animal studies suggest that the effects of oxytocin on cortisol, mood, and anxiety responses to psychosocial stress in humans. Oxytocin (OXT) has been found to be released peripherally and within the brain in response to both physical and psychological stress and fearful situations. OXT is an evolutionarily conserved neuropeptide hormone involved in mammalian reproduction. Among humans, its effects consist of peripherally stimulating uterine contractions during labor and milk ejection during lactation. Many studies have shown that OXT may play an important role in establishing mutual cooperation by facilitating trust and social cognition. For example, increased trust may result from OXT's anti-anxiolytic effects. Nasal OXT administration is known to reduce fear by inhibiting amygdale activation and is associated with a decline in salivary cortisol. In a social context, OXT could thereby increase trust by reducing social apprehension, it also plays a role in developing social bonds by improving social cognition and enhancing the value of social interactions. Cortisol was measured another hormone indicators in our study. Humans as social beings often have to perform complex social cognitive tasks while under stress (e.g., during a social conflict). Previous research has established that the brain regions responsible for social cognitive tasks are target regions for stress hormones. Cortisol is involved in the regulation of fat, protein and carbohydrate metabolism, electrolyte balance, body water distribution, blood pressure and has an immunosuppressant and anti-inflammatory action. It is also a key regulator of the neuroendocrine stress response, there is abundant evidence that the secretion of glucocorticoid (GC) stress hormones (e.g., cortisol) may modulate memory functioning. In addition, we also measured the levels of serum immunoglobulin.The main results include the following points:The result showed that somatization, hostility and Global severity index in SCL-90 scores of Tibetan Zang male were significantly higher than Han young men indicating high levels of adjustment disorder in Tibetan Zang male. However, female Han college students showed significantly higher scores in obsessive compulsion, anxiety, phobic anxiety and psychoticism while Tibetan Zang females exhibited higher score in somatization and Global severity index. Both male and female Tibetan Han freshmen showed significantly higher levels of cognitive ability than did male and female Tibetan Zang freshmen. The sub-scores of SCL-90 (levels of adjustment disorder) were negatively correlated with RSPM score (cognitive ability) in both Tibetan Zang and Han freshmen with different sex. The levels of both OXT and cortisol showed significant sexual differences with males being significantly higher.It can be concluded that youngsters of both ethnic groups from Tibet showed significant differences in levels of adjustment disorder and cognition ability. The psychological disorder, different levels of cognition ability and serum OXT and cortisol may possibly be associated each other. The youngsters of both nationalities are influenced by the changes of environment, which cause the changes of hormone and furthermore, activates the immunologic function. In the process of adaptation, adjustment disorder of Zangs affects their level of cognition remarkably. Whereas level of cognition of Han was not greatly influenced.