Early deprivation alters structural brain development from middle childhood to adolescence

Sheridan, Margaret A.; Mukerji, Cora; Wade, Mark; Humphreys, Kathryn L.; Garrisi, Kathryn; Goel, Srishti; Patel, Kinjal K.; Zeanah, Charles H.; Nelson, Charles A.; McLaughlin, Katie A.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abn4316

Cited by 36 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…Finally, in terms of brain activity, children randomly assigned to foster care showed increased electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha power at rest (Debnath et al, 2020; Marshall et al, 2004, 2008; Vanderwert et al, 2010) and modest increases in white-matter volume (Sheridan et al, 2012). In addition, by age 16, a number of regions of the prefrontal cortex were thinner in children in foster care compared with children remaining in care as usual, a pattern consistent with the normative typical thinning the cortex undergoes during adolescence (Sheridan et al, 2022), likely the effect of synaptic pruning. Finally, in terms of psychopathology, psychiatric disorders were consistently less common in children randomized to foster care (Humphreys et al, 2020; Zeanah et al, 2009).…”

Section: Efficacy Of the Interventionsupporting

confidence: 52%

Romania’s Abandoned Children: The Effects of Early Profound Psychosocial Deprivation on the Course of Human Development

Nelson,

Fox,

Zeanah

2023

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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Understanding the impact that early psychosocial neglect has on the course of human development has implications for the millions of children around the world who are living in contexts of adversity. In the United States, approximately 76% of cases reported to child protective services involve neglect; worldwide, there are more than 150 million orphaned or abandoned children, including 10.5 million orphaned because of COVID-19. In much of the world, children without primary caregivers are reared in institutional settings. We review two decades of research based on the only randomized controlled trial of foster care as an alternative to institutional care. We report that children randomly assigned to continued care as usual (institutional care) suffer from persistent deficits in social, cognitive, and emotional development and show evidence of disruptions in brain development. By contrast, children randomly assigned to foster care show improvements in most domains of functioning, although the degree of recovery is in part a function of how old they were when placed into foster care and the stability of that placement. These findings have important implications for understanding critical periods in human development as well as elucidate the power of the psychosocial environment in shaping multiple domains of human development.

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Section: Efficacy Of the Interventionsupporting

confidence: 52%

Romania’s Abandoned Children: The Effects of Early Profound Psychosocial Deprivation on the Course of Human Development

Nelson,

Fox,

Zeanah

2023

Curr Dir Psychol Sci

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“…Injury prevention aligns with NFP goals over the life course (Olds et al., 2014). NFP is designed to enhance mothers' motivation to protect their children, buffering them from the impact of early toxic stress during a sensitive period of development, with long‐term implications for healthy neurodevelopment and behaviours (Gee & Cohodes, 2021; Olds et al., 2014; Sheridan et al., 2022).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effectiveness of nurse‐home visiting in improving child and maternal outcomes prenatally to age two years: a randomised controlled trial (British Columbia Healthy Connections Project)

Catherine

MacMillan

Cullen

et al. 2023

Child Psychology Psychiatry

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BackgroundWe investigated the effectiveness of Nurse‐Family Partnership (NFP), a prenatal‐to‐age‐two‐years home‐visiting programme, in British Columbia (BC), Canada.MethodsFor this randomised controlled trial, we recruited participants from 26 public health settings who were: <25 years, nulliparous, <28 weeks gestation and experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage. We randomly allocated participants (one‐to‐one; computer‐generated) to intervention (NFP plus existing services) or comparison (existing services) groups. Prespecified outcomes were prenatal substance exposure (reported previously); child injuries (primary), language, cognition and mental health (problem behaviour) by age two years; and subsequent pregnancies by 24 months postpartum. Research interviewers were masked. We used intention‐to‐treat analyses. (ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01672060.)ResultsFrom 2013 to 2016 we enrolled 739 participants (368 NFP, 371 comparison) who had 737 children. Counts for child injury healthcare encounters [rate per 1,000 person‐years or RPY] were similar for NFP (223 [RPY 316.17]) and comparison (223 [RPY 305.43]; rate difference 10.74, 95% CI ‐46.96, 68.44; rate ratio 1.03, 95% CI 0.78, 1.38). Maternal‐reported language scores (mean, M [SD]) were statistically significantly higher for NFP (313.46 [195.96]) than comparison (282.77 [188.15]; mean difference [MD] 31.33, 95% CI 0.96, 61.71). Maternal‐reported problem‐behaviour scores (M [SD]) were statistically significantly lower for NFP (52.18 [9.19]) than comparison (54.42 [9.02]; MD ‐2.19, 95% CI −3.62, −0.75). Subsequent pregnancy counts were similar (NFP 115 [RPY 230.69] and comparison 117 [RPY 227.29]; rate difference 3.40, 95% CI ‐55.54, 62.34; hazard ratio 1.01, 95% CI 0.79, 1.29). We observed no unanticipated adverse events.ConclusionsNFP did not reduce child injuries or subsequent maternal pregnancies but did improve maternal‐reported child language and mental health (problem behaviour) at age two years. Follow‐up of long‐term outcomes is warranted given that further benefits may emerge across childhood and adolescence.

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“…The PFC is particularly vulnerable to life stress and adversity given its protracted development into early adulthood. Both early‐life adversity and chronic stress are associated with structural and functional alterations in both medial and lateral portions of the PFC (Edmiston et al., 2011; Luby et al., 2013; Sheridan et al., 2022). Thus, one mechanism through which stress may get under the skin to generate risk for depression is by affecting the developmental arc of the PFC.…”

Section: Threat Reward and Executive‐control Neural Circuitry In Depr...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Annual Research Review: Neuroimmune network model of depression: a developmental perspective

Nusslock,

Alloy,

Brody

et al. 2024

Child Psychology Psychiatry

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Depression is a serious public health problem, and adolescence is an ‘age of risk’ for the onset of Major Depressive Disorder. Recently, we and others have proposed neuroimmune network models that highlight bidirectional communication between the brain and the immune system in both mental and physical health, including depression. These models draw on research indicating that the cellular actors (particularly monocytes) and signaling molecules (particularly cytokines) that orchestrate inflammation in the periphery can directly modulate the structure and function of the brain. In the brain, inflammatory activity heightens sensitivity to threats in the cortico‐amygdala circuit, lowers sensitivity to rewards in the cortico‐striatal circuit, and alters executive control and emotion regulation in the prefrontal cortex. When dysregulated, and particularly under conditions of chronic stress, inflammation can generate feelings of dysphoria, distress, and anhedonia. This is proposed to initiate unhealthy, self‐medicating behaviors (e.g. substance use, poor diet) to manage the dysphoria, which further heighten inflammation. Over time, dysregulation in these brain circuits and the inflammatory response may compound each other to form a positive feedback loop, whereby dysregulation in one organ system exacerbates the other. We and others suggest that this neuroimmune dysregulation is a dynamic joint vulnerability for depression, particularly during adolescence. We have three goals for the present paper. First, we extend neuroimmune network models of mental and physical health to generate a developmental framework of risk for the onset of depression during adolescence. Second, we examine how a neuroimmune network perspective can help explain the high rates of comorbidity between depression and other psychiatric disorders across development, and multimorbidity between depression and stress‐related medical illnesses. Finally, we consider how identifying neuroimmune pathways to depression can facilitate a ‘next generation’ of behavioral and biological interventions that target neuroimmune signaling to treat, and ideally prevent, depression in youth and adolescents.

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Early deprivation alters structural brain development from middle childhood to adolescence

Cited by 36 publications

References 82 publications

Romania’s Abandoned Children: The Effects of Early Profound Psychosocial Deprivation on the Course of Human Development

Romania’s Abandoned Children: The Effects of Early Profound Psychosocial Deprivation on the Course of Human Development

Effectiveness of nurse‐home visiting in improving child and maternal outcomes prenatally to age two years: a randomised controlled trial (British Columbia Healthy Connections Project)

Annual Research Review: Neuroimmune network model of depression: a developmental perspective

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