Neurostructural traces of early life adversities: A meta-analysis exploring age- and adversity-specific effects

Pollok, Tania M.; Kaiser, Anna; Kraaijenvanger, Eline J.; Monninger, Maximilian; Brandeis, Daniel; Banaschewski, Tobias; Eickhoff, Simon B.; Holz, Nathalie E.

doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104589

Cited by 41 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 145 publications

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“…A lately published large sample study performed whole-brain vertex-wise SBM in adolescent and adult females with interpersonal violence exposure, and found CTh in the median cingulate cortex was negatively related to early-life trauma in both age groups (Ross, Sartin-Tarm, Letkiewicz, Crombie, & Cisler, 2021). GMV studies achieved by VBM were more widely used, and brain areas involved with memory processing, socio-affective regulation, and executive control, such as the PFC, superior temporal gyrus (STG), hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and limbic system were frequently reported (Cancel et al, 2019; Lim et al, 2014; Pollok et al, 2022). Functional MRI (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies have yielded similar and complex findings (Hakamata et al, 2022; Lim et al, 2020; Teicher et al, 2016), further confirms the multi-dimensional effects of childhood trauma on the brain development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of childhood maltreatment on cortical thickness and gray matter volume: a coordinate-based meta-analysis

Yang¹,

Jin

Duan

et al. 2023

Psychol. Med.

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Childhood maltreatment has been suggested to have an adverse impact on neurodevelopment, including microstructural brain abnormalities. Existing neuroimaging findings remain inconsistent and heterogeneous. We aim to explore the most prominent and robust cortical thickness (CTh) and gray matter volume (GMV) alterations associated with childhood maltreatment. A systematic search on relevant studies was conducted through September 2022. The whole-brain coordinate-based meta-analysis (CBMA) on CTh and GMV studies were conducted using the seed-based d mapping (SDM) software. Meta-regression analysis was subsequently applied to investigate potential associations between clinical variables and structural changes. A total of 45 studies were eligible for inclusion, including 11 datasets on CTh and 39 datasets on GMV, consisting of 2550 participants exposed to childhood maltreatment and 3739 unexposed comparison subjects. Individuals with childhood maltreatment exhibited overlapped deficits in the median cingulate/paracingulate gyri simultaneously revealed by both CTh and GM studies. Regional cortical thinning in the right anterior cingulate/paracingulate gyri and the left middle frontal gyrus, as well as GMV reductions in the left supplementary motor area (SMA) was also identified. No greater regions were found for either CTh or GMV. In addition, several neural morphology changes were associated with the average age of the maltreated individuals. The median cingulate/paracingulate gyri morphology might serve as the most robust neuroimaging feature of childhood maltreatment. The effects of early-life trauma on the human brain predominantly involved in cognitive functions, socio-affective functioning and stress regulation. This current meta-analysis enhanced the understanding of neuropathological changes induced by childhood maltreatment.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of childhood maltreatment on cortical thickness and gray matter volume: a coordinate-based meta-analysis

Yang¹,

Jin

Duan

et al. 2023

Psychol. Med.

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“…Adolescence is an important time for the development of the HPA axis and accompanied by vast changes in steroid hormones [ 61 ]. Studies have also indicated that this period is accompanied by increased basal and stress-induced HPA axis activity and greater cortisol secretion [ 62 ] in addition to age-specific grey matter developmental changes in response to stress, including the anatomical components of the HPA axis [ 63 , 64 ]. Younger children, on the other hand, may be somewhat shielded from the emotional impact of war-related events by their family, or may lack the cognitive skills to process the fear-associated qualities of war.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

War exposure, post-traumatic stress symptoms and hair cortisol concentrations in Syrian refugee children

et al. 2022

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Altered secretion of cortisol, the primary effector of the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis, has been proposed as a means by which traumatic experiences compromise later mental health. However, despite the popularity of cortisol as a potential biomarker for stress and adversity, findings are inconsistent, and little is known about the impact of war-related trauma on stress physiology of children and adolescents. Here we aimed to evaluate the relationships between war exposure, current living conditions, hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in a large cohort of Syrian refugee children and adolescents (6–18 years) and their caregiver. This longitudinal observational study assessed Syrian refugee children and adolescents in two waves, 1 year apart, within informal tented settlements in Lebanon. The relationships between war exposure, time since leaving Syria, PTSD symptoms and HCC were investigated using linear mixed-model regression utilising both waves of data collected (Y1: N = 1574, Y2: N = 923). Hair cortisol concentration was positively, but weakly associated with the number of war-related events experienced. This was limited to those who were at least 12 years old at the time of war exposure. Conversely, HCC decreased with time since leaving Syria. HCC was also associated with PTSD symptoms but not with the quality of their current living conditions. This study revealed that changes to hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity may accompany both earlier war exposure and current PTSD symptoms in children and adolescents. Additionally, early adolescence may be a particularly sensitive time in terms of trauma-related changes to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.

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“…Importantly for personality neuroscience, the amygdala, hippocampus, and endocrine system are substrates of these responses to early adversity (Ellis & Honeycutt, 2021;Qin et al, 2021) with similar brain changes apparent in humans (Pollok et al, 2022). The comparison of strain selection and environmental experiments in nonhumans with confirmatory, albeit correlational, human imaging is a powerful solution to the problems facing each approach separately.…”

Section: Genes Environment and Personalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-human contributions to personality neuroscience – from fish through primates. An introduction to the special issue

Lages

McNaughton²

2022

Personality Neuroscience

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The most fundamental emotional systems that show trait control are evolutionarily old and extensively conserved. Psychology in general has benefited from non-human neuroscience and from the analytical simplicity of behaviour in those with simpler nervous systems. It has been argued that integration between personality, psychopathology, and neuroscience is particularly promising if we are to understand the neurobiology of human experience. Here, we provide some general arguments for a non-human approach being at least as productive in relation to personality, psychopathology, and their interface. Some early personality theories were directly linked to psychopathology (e.g., Eysenck, Panksepp, and Cloninger). They shared a common interest in brain systems that naturally led to the use of non-human data; behavioural, neural, and pharmacological. In Eysenck’s case, this also led to the selective breeding, at the Maudsley Institute, of emotionally reactive and non-reactive strains of rat as models of trait neuroticism or trait emotionality. Dimensional personality research and categorical approaches to clinical disorder then drifted apart from each other, from neuropsychology, and from non-human data. Recently, the conceptualizations of both healthy personality and psychopathology have moved towards a common hierarchical trait perspective. Indeed, the proposed two sets of trait dimensions appear similar and may even be eventually the same. We provide, here, an introduction to this special issue of Personality Neuroscience, where the authors provide overviews of detailed areas where non-human data inform human personality and its psychopathology or provide explicit models for translation to human neuroscience. Once all the papers in the issue have appeared, we will also provide a concluding summary of them.

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Neurostructural traces of early life adversities: A meta-analysis exploring age- and adversity-specific effects

Cited by 41 publications

References 145 publications

The effects of childhood maltreatment on cortical thickness and gray matter volume: a coordinate-based meta-analysis

The effects of childhood maltreatment on cortical thickness and gray matter volume: a coordinate-based meta-analysis

War exposure, post-traumatic stress symptoms and hair cortisol concentrations in Syrian refugee children

Non-human contributions to personality neuroscience – from fish through primates. An introduction to the special issue

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