I want a biological measure of psycholigical chronic stress
I guess, you could use hair cortisol test as a chronic stress biomarker but it has many limitations. 1. Dyed hair is off limits 2. Hair must have a minimum length of 2 cm 3. It presents variability at extreme ages 4. You can assess safely only 5 months prior to test.
Hi, in part of my project I'm using hair to assess chronic stress in orangutans, my colleague is now still validating the protocols. We use around 10 mg hair sample for these assay. I there's also a variability on which parts of the body the hair sample was taken (in terms of hairy animals).
Body part hair cortisol variability is also demonstrated in humans. The protocol that has been widely used in humans entails hair taken from the posterior part of the scalp. 10 mg is the minimum quantity needed to assess hair cortisol levels.
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