Autobiographical memory: A candidate latent vulnerability mechanism for psychiatric disorder following childhood maltreatment

Abstract

BackgroundAltered autobiographical memory (ABM) functioning has been implicated in the pathogenesis of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and may represent one mechanism by which childhood maltreatment elevates psychiatric risk.AimsTo investigate the impact of childhood maltreatment on ABM functioning.MethodThirty-four children with documented maltreatment and 33 matched controls recalled specific ABMs in response to emotionally valenced cue words during functional magnetic resonance imaging.ResultsChildren with maltreatment experience showed reduced hippocampal and increased middle temporal and parahippocampal activation during positive ABM recall compared with peers. During negative ABM recall they exhibited increased amygdala activation, and greater amygdala connectivity with the salience network.ConclusionsChildhood maltreatment is associated with altered ABM functioning, specifically reduced activation in areas encoding specification of positive memories, and greater activation of the salience network for negative memories. This pattern may confer latent vulnerability to future depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Early life adversity and borderline intellectual functioning negatively impact limbic system connectivity in childhood: a connectomics-based study

“…To our knowledge this is the first report of the involvement of the limbic system connectivity in children exposed to ELA showing a BIF and is in line with consistent data from neuroimaging studies showing that abuse, maltreatment, and neglect in childhood are associated with specific epigenetic and neural signatures related to long lasting structural and functional changes in brain areas belonging to the limbic system (4,37,44) together with alteration in the structural connectivity at the network level (39). In particular, it has been shown that adults who experienced maltreatment during childhood show hyper-responsiveness of the amygdala to fearful stimuli (45,46), even during pre-attentive conditions (47,48), hypo-reactivity of the hippocampus to pleasant autobiographical stimuli and hyper-reactivity during unpleasant stimuli (47), and abnormal reactivity to reward in the nucleus accumbens (49). Moreover, at the morphometric level reduced cortical thickness in the anterior cingulate, superior frontal gyrus, and orbitofrontal cortex, reduced cortical surface area in the left middle temporal area and lingual gyrus, and gyrification deficits in the lingual gyrus and the insula were demonstrated (4).…”

Heightened amygdala reactivity and increased stress generation predict internalizing symptoms in adults following childhood maltreatment

“…For instance, recent neurocognitive evidence indicate that children exposed to maltreatment show increased susceptibility to psychosocial stressors (Puetz et al., , ), reduced affect regulation (McCrory, Gerin et al., ), and increased rejection sensitivity associated with higher likelihood of conflictual interactions (Hernandez et al., ). Moreover, overgeneral autobiographical memory, commonly associated with the experience of abuse and neglect (McCrory, Puetz et al., ), is thought to reduce social problem solving ability (Raes et al., ). One important implication is that such maladaptive social functioning may not only compromise an individual's ability to establish and sustain positive relationships that help buffer the impact of future stressors, but also act in ways that might potentiate the generation of stressful life events (e.g., relationship breakdowns, exclusion from school, peer‐victimization, and difficulties in the work environment).…”

“…It will be important in future work to investigate the existence of sensitive periods during which the impact of maltreatment on the brain may be particularly potent. Retrospective/self‐reported assessments are also poor at capturing maltreatment during infancy or early childhood and may in addition be compromised by the fact that maltreatment exposure is often associated with dissociative/overgeneral cognitive styles (e.g., McCrory, Puetz et al., ) which may lead to under‐reports and limited conscious awareness of the experience of abuse and neglect. Finally, it is important to note that notwithstanding the fact that we have controlled for internalizing symptoms and SES within our design, it remains theoretically possible (but in our view unlikely given the variety of life events measured in our study and the PSM) that a third, yet unidentified factor, drives both the occurrence of maltreatment and the increased frequency of major stressful life events.…”

“…These adaptations are postulated to provide proximal benefits for a child in an abusive or neglectful home environment but confer risk (latent vulnerability) for psychopathology, since such adaptations are not thought to be optimized for more normative environments (McCrory & Viding, ). Candidate neurocognitive systems include threat processing (Hein & Monk, ; McCrory & Viding, ; McCrory, Gerin et al., ), reward processing (McCrory, Gerin et al., ), and autobiographical memory processing (McCrory, Puetz et al., ). These neurocognitive changes can confer latent vulnerability either directly or indirectly .…”

Positive memory specificity reduces adolescent vulnerability to depression

“…These comprise a cognitive vulnerability to depression which is 'activated' in the face of stress 21 , leading to subsequent low mood. Early adversities have also been found to alter activation of brain areas involved in the specification of positive memories (i.e., reduced hippocampal activation), suggesting a neural substrate of lower positive memory specificity after early life stress 39 . Here, we find that positive memory specificity may act as a naturalistic defense against the negative cognitive consequences emerging from new incoming stress in at-risk adolescents.…”