Alterations in neural circuits underlying emotion regulation following child maltreatment: a mechanism underlying trauma-related psychopathology

Abstract

Background Disruptions in neural circuits underlying emotion regulation (ER) may be a mechanism linking child maltreatment with psychopathology. We examined the associations of maltreatment with neural responses during passive viewing of negative emotional stimuli and attempts to modulate emotional responses. We investigated whether the influence of maltreatment on neural activation during ER differed across development and whether alterations in brain function mediated the association between maltreatment and a latent general psychopathology (‘p’) factor. Methods Youth aged 8–16 years with (n = 79) and without (n = 72) exposure to maltreatment completed an ER task assessing neural responses during passive viewing of negative and neutral images and effortful attempts to regulate emotional responses to negative stimuli. P-factor scores were defined by a bi-factor model encompassing internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. Results Maltreated youth had greater activation in left amygdala and salience processing regions and reduced activation in multiple regions involved in cognitive control (bilateral superior frontal gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex) when viewing negative v. neutral images than youth without maltreatment exposure. Reduced neural recruitment in cognitive control regions mediated the association of maltreatment with p-factor in whole-brain analysis. Maltreated youth exhibited increasing recruitment with age in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex during reappraisal while control participants exhibited decreasing recruitment with age. Findings were similar after adjusting for co-occurring neglect. Conclusions Child maltreatment influences the development of regions associated with salience processing and cognitive control during ER in ways that contribute to psychopathology.

Corporal Punishment and Elevated Neural Response to Threat in Children

“…The MFG is frequently engaged during effortful attempts to regulate emotional responses, such as when using cognitive reappraisal (Goldin, McRae, Ramel, & Gross, 2008; Kanske, Heissler, Schönfelder, Bongers, & Wessa, 2010; Silvers, Weber, Wager, & Ochsner, 2014). Children who have been exposed to violence recruit regions of the dorsolateral PFC more during cognitive reappraisal of negative emotion than those who have never encountered violence, particularly during adolescence (Jenness et al, 2020; McLaughlin et al, 2015). Neutral faces are ambiguous stimuli, and are often interpreted as negative by children (Tottenham et al, 2009).…”

“…A multi‐informant, multimethod approach used frequently in prior work (e.g., Jenness et al, 2020; Weissman et al, 2019) was used to assess exposure to physical or sexual abuse. Children were classified as experiencing physical or sexual abuse if abuse was endorsed by the child on the Childhood Experiences of Care and Abuse (CECA) interview (Bifulco, Brown, & Harris, 1994), UCLA PTSD Reaction Index (PTSD‐RI) trauma screen (Steinberg et al, 2013), or above the validated threshold on the self‐report Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ; Bernstein, Ahluvalia, Pogge, & Handelsman, 1997) or reported by the parent on the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (Finkelhor, Hamby, Ormrod, & Turner, 2005), or PTSD‐RI.…”

Mechanisms linking childhood trauma exposure and psychopathology: a transdiagnostic model of risk and resilience

“…For example, children exposed to trauma are more likely to report using maladaptive emotion regulation strategies like rumination, expressive suppression, and impulsive responses to distress; greater use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies has also been observed in studies using behavioral paradigms and caregiver report [31,61,67,[77][78][79]. When asked to use effective emotion regulation strategies like cognitive reappraisal to dampen emotional reactivity, youth exposed to trauma recruit the prefrontal cortex (PFC) to a greater degree than those without trauma histories [71], a pattern that emerges across the transition to adolescence [80]. This pattern suggests that using explicit emotion regulation strategies like cognitive reappraisal might be more difficult or require greater cognitive resources for children who have experienced trauma-potentially as a result of the heightened emotional reactivity common in these youth.…”

Neurobiological Markers of Resilience to Early-Life Adversity During Adolescence

“…Negative PFC-amygdala coupling is broadly considered the mature emotion regulation phenotype, as it emerges during the transition to adolescence and predicts both better regulation of negative affect and reduced risk for internalizing psychopathology (56,(63)(64)(65)(66). Similarly, disruption to (behavioral and neural) emotion regulation processes constitutes a transdiagnostic mechanism connecting ELA and psychopathology risk (67)(68)(69)(70).…”