Childhood Maltreatment and Psychopathology Affect Brain Development During Adolescence

Whittle, Sarah; Dennison, Meg; Vijayakumar, Nandita; Simmons, Julian G; Yücel, Murat; Lubman, Dan I.; Pantelis, Christos; Allen, Nicholas B.

doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2013.06.007

Cited by 166 publications

(138 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Such an explanation would be consistent with our results of inverse PTSD symptom correlations with hippocampal and left amygdala volumes. A longitudinal study demonstrated that maltreated adolescents had larger left hippocampal volumes at baseline; but, if the youth had psychopathology, the hippocampus grew more slowly over an approximately 4-year follow-up period (Whittle et al, 2013). Another study suggested that hippocampal atrophy in youth with impairing PTSD symptoms may be a latent developmental effect (Carrion et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amygdala, Hippocampus, and Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex Volumes Differ in Maltreated Youth with and without Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Morey

Haswell

Hooper

et al. 2015

Neuropsychopharmacol

195

159

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Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is considered a disorder of recovery where individuals fail to learn and retain extinction of the traumatic fear response. In maltreated youth, PTSD is common, chronic, and associated with comorbidity. Studies of extinction-related structural volumes (amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC)) and this stress diathesis, in maltreated youth were not previously investigated. In this cross-sectional study, neuroanatomical volumes associated with extinction in maltreated youth with PTSD (N=31), without PTSD (N=32), and in non-maltreated healthy volunteers (n=57) were examined using magnetic resonance imaging. Groups were sociodemographically similar. Participants underwent extensive assessments for strict inclusion/exclusion criteria and DSM-IV disorders. Maltreated youth with PTSD demonstrated decreased right vmPFC volumes compared with both maltreated youth without PTSD and non-maltreated controls. Maltreated youth without PTSD demonstrated larger left amygdala and right hippocampal volumes compared with maltreated youth with PTSD and non-maltreated control youth. PTSD symptoms inversely correlated with right and left hippocampal and left amygdala volumes. Confirmatory masked voxel base morphometry analyses demonstrated greater medial orbitofrontal cortex gray matter intensity in controls than maltreated youth with PTSD. Volumetric results were not influenced by psychopathology or maltreatment variables. We identified volumetric differences in extinction-related structures between maltreated youth with PTSD from those without PTSD. Alterations of the vmPFC may be one mechanism that mediates the pathway from PTSD to comorbidity. Further longitudinal work is needed to determine neurobiological factors related to chronic and persistent PTSD, and to PTSD resilience despite maltreatment.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amygdala, Hippocampus, and Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex Volumes Differ in Maltreated Youth with and without Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Morey

Haswell

Hooper

et al. 2015

Neuropsychopharmacol

195

159

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In contrast, the left amygdala appears to develop more rapidly in the first few years of life, suggesting a more prominent role in early development. Furthermore, a recent longitudinal study showed that only left amygdala growth but not right amygdala growth following childhood maltreatment is mediated by adolescent psychopathology (63). Functionally, the amygdala has been proposed to be associated with self-referential processing of negative emotional stimuli on the right and positive emotional stimuli on the left (64).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further research is needed to determine what factors may lead to increased or decreased amygdala volume (e.g., 63), keeping in mind that this may not be a cause and effect relationship with ELS. For example, it is possible that reduced amygdala volume may be a preexisting risk factor for certain forms of psychopathology (53), and may appear as a maltreatment-related consequence in these samples.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitive periods of amygdala development: The role of maltreatment in preadolescence

et al. 2014

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The amygdala is vulnerable to stress-dependent disruptions in neural development. Animal models have shown that stress increases dendritic arborization leading to larger amygdala volumes. Human studies of early stress and amygdala volume, however, remain inconclusive. This study compared amygdala volume in adults with childhood maltreatment to healthy controls. Eighteen participants from a longitudinal cohort and 33 cross-sectional controls (17M/35F, 25.4 ±3.1 years) completed a structural magnetic resonance imagining scan and the Maltreatment and Abuse Chronology of Exposure scale. Random forest regression with conditional trees was used to assess relative importance of exposure to adversity at each age on amygdala, thalamic or caudate volume. Severity of exposure to adversity across age accounted for 27% of the variance in right amygdala volume. Peak sensitivity occurred at 10–11 years of age, and importance of exposure at this time was highly significant based on permutation tests (p=0.003). The regression model showed that exposure during this sensitive period resulted in steep dose-response function with maximal response to even modest levels of exposure. Subjects in the highest exposure quartile (MACE-11, range 11 – 54) had a 9.1% greater right amygdala volume than subjects in the lowest exposure quartile (MACE-11, < 3.5). No associations emerged between age of exposure and volume of left amygdala or bilateral caudate or thalamus. Severity of adversity experienced at age 10–11 contributed to larger right but not left amygdala volume in adulthood. Results provide preliminary evidence that the amygdala may have a developmental sensitive period in preadolescence.

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“…Similarly, 10-year-old children exposed to maternal depression since birth had larger amygdale than same aged peers without depressed mothers [31]. Also, high rates of childhood adversity were associated with a larger (i.e., more mature) left amygdala volume in early adolescence (mean age 12.64 years) [32]. However, some studies have also reported smaller amygdala volumes following adversity (e.g., abuse, institutional neglect) in adolescents (mean age 11-12 years) [33, 34] and in preschoolers (3-6 years) [35].…”

Section: Neural Studies Demonstrating Stress Acceleration Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Stress Acceleration Hypothesis: effects of early-life adversity on emotion circuits and behavior

Callaghan

Tottenham

2016

Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences

447

329

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The importance of early experiences for mental health across the lifespan is well recognized. In particular, there is a strong association between adverse caregiving experiences and mental illness. However, relative to studies assessing outcomes in adults, there are far fewer studies assessing the earlier emerging manifestations of caregiving adversity during development. This lack of developmental research limits an understanding of the mechanisms that link adversity with mental illness. Adoption of a developmental approach to research in this field will yield greater insights into the factors that tie adversity to poor emotion function across a lifespan. In this review, we focus on recent findings that have used a developmental approach in the examination of mental health and early adversity. These studies are notable in that, across numerous species, they converge on the idea that early adversity leads to accelerated maturation of emotion circuits in the brain and in the behaviors supported by these regions. We propose that these ‘stress acceleration’ effects are evidence of early system adaptation.

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Childhood Maltreatment and Psychopathology Affect Brain Development During Adolescence

Cited by 166 publications

References 49 publications

Amygdala, Hippocampus, and Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex Volumes Differ in Maltreated Youth with and without Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Amygdala, Hippocampus, and Ventral Medial Prefrontal Cortex Volumes Differ in Maltreated Youth with and without Chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Sensitive periods of amygdala development: The role of maltreatment in preadolescence

The Stress Acceleration Hypothesis: effects of early-life adversity on emotion circuits and behavior

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