Childhood maltreatment is associated with an automatic negative emotion processing bias in the amygdala

Dannlowski, Udo; Kugel, Harald; Huber, Franziska; Stuhrmann, Anja; Redlich, Ronny; Grotegerd, Dominik; Dohm, Katharina; Sehlmeyer, Christina; Konrad, Carsten; Baune, Bernhard T.; Arolt, Volker; Heindel, Walter; Zwitserlood, Pienie; Suslow, Thomas

doi:10.1002/hbm.22112

Cited by 221 publications

(197 citation statements)

References 83 publications

(105 reference statements)

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“…This linear association remained significant after controlling for individual differences in age, IQ, experimental sequence, GMV of corresponding areas, neuroticism, self-esteem, and trait anxiety. ELS has previously been associated with limbic hyper-responsiveness to negative facial cues during early stage of emotion processing (Dannlowski et al, 2013). Impaired structural connectivity within the limbic-prefrontal circuit has also been observed in subjects who have experienced ELS (Hart and Rubia, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Amygdala–Hippocampal Connectivity Changes During Acute Psychosocial Stress: Joint Effect of Early Life Stress and Oxytocin

Fan

Pestke

Feeser

et al. 2015

Neuropsychopharmacol

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Previous evidence shows that acute stress changes both amygdala activity and its connectivity with a distributed brain network. Early life stress (ELS), especially emotional abuse (EA), is associated with altered reactivity to psychosocial stress in adulthood and moderates or even reverses the stress-attenuating effect of oxytocin (OXT). The neural underpinnings of the interaction between ELS and OXT remain unclear, though. Therefore, we here investigate the joint effect of ELS and OXT on transient changes in amygdala-centered functional connectivity induced by acute psychosocial stress, using a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, within-subject crossover design. Psychophysiological interaction analysis in the placebo session revealed stress-induced increases in functional connectivity between amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, putamen, caudate and thalamus. Regression analysis showed that EA was positively associated with stress-induced changes in connectivity between amygdala and hippocampus. Moreover, hierarchical linear regression showed that this positive association between EA and stress-induced amygdala-hippocampal connectivity was moderated after the administration of intranasal OXT. Amygdala-hippocampal connectivity in the OXT session correlated negatively with cortisol stress responses. Our findings suggest that altered amygdala-hippocampal functional connectivity during psychosocial stress may have a crucial role in the altered sensitivity to OXT effects in individuals who have experienced EA in their childhood.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Amygdala–Hippocampal Connectivity Changes During Acute Psychosocial Stress: Joint Effect of Early Life Stress and Oxytocin

Fan

Pestke

Feeser

et al. 2015

Neuropsychopharmacol

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“…relation to childhood trauma (Dannlowski et al, 2012;van Harmelen et al, 2013), these studies did not take the relationship between emotional valence and skills subserving emotion regulation into account. An interesting study by Tottenham et al (2011) that examined the influence of amygdala activity for fearful compared to neutral faces during inhibitory control in previously institutionalized children did unfortunately not examine happy faces.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Childhood Abuse Is Related to Working Memory Impairment for Positive Emotion in Female University Students

2013

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Childhood abuse is an important risk factor for depression, anxiety disorders, and substance use later in life. One possible mechanism underlying this association could be deficits in cognitive processing of emotional information. This study tested the impact of distracting emotional information on working memory performance in 21 young women with a history of sexual and physical abuse during childhood/adolescence (mean age = 20.0 years), and compared their performance to 17 individuals reporting non-abuse related childhood stress (mean age = 19.6 years) and a control group of 17 women without a history of childhood stress (mean age = 20.0 years). During the most difficult distractor condition, working memory accuracy for positive vs. neutral incidental emotional stimuli was reduced in women reporting a history of abuse relative to both control groups (with and without nonabuse related childhood stress). The current results reveal aberrant responses to positive stimuli and are consistent with the notion of persistent influence of childhood abuse on processes critical for emotional well-being and emotion control. More specifically, these experiences have been shown to be an important risk factor for development of later psychopathology, such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and substance abuse (Coffino, 2009;J. G. Green et al., 2010; MacMillan et al., 2001).Importantly, childhood sexual abuse is particularly related to psychopathology even when other adversities and stressors are taken into consideration (Molnar, Buka, & Kessler, 2001).In order to develop interventions aimed at diminishing the adverse effects of such traumatic childhood stress later in life, it is crucial to gain insight into the underlying cognitive mechanisms linking early-life stress to psychopathology. The current study sought to address how emotional stimuli interfere with cognitive control processes, such as working memory, in young women with a history of childhood sexual and physical abuse. To assess specificity of adverse childhood experience on emotion processing, a second group of young women who had experienced other childhood adversities were also included in addition to a control group with no history of ES, given that different was hypothesized that the abuse group would show impaired working memory performance during emotional distractors relative to 1) a neutral condition, 2) individuals reporting a history of non-abuse related childhood stress and 3) healthy comparisons in a visuo-spatial working memory task. Finally, we also predicted that both groups with a history of childhood stress would show higher rates of self-reported psychopathology than the control group. Method ParticipantsFirst-year university psychology students (n = 616) were asked to complete several screening questionnaires in exchange for course credit. For the present purposes, students were asked to indicate the number of stressors they had encountered during childhood and/or adolescence (0, 1, 2 or more). Due to ethical reason...

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“…It was reported that childhood maltreatment was associated with increased neural responses in the amygdala to presentation of both angry and happy emotional expressions in one study 3 and to presentations of only sad facial expressions in another study. 4 In combination with genetic factors, such childhood maltreatment-induced alterations might set the stage for the development of psychopathology. In support of this suggestion, we demonstrated previously that childhood adversity interacts with genetics and affects hippocampal volumes in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DNA methylation of the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4) is associated with brain function involved in processing emotional stimuli

Frodl

Szyf

Carballedo

et al. 2015

jpn

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Childhood maltreatment is associated with an automatic negative emotion processing bias in the amygdala

Abstract: the present association of limbic bias and maltreatment was demonstrated in the absence of psychopathological abnormalities, thereby limiting strong conclusions.

Cited by 221 publications

References 83 publications

Amygdala–Hippocampal Connectivity Changes During Acute Psychosocial Stress: Joint Effect of Early Life Stress and Oxytocin

Amygdala–Hippocampal Connectivity Changes During Acute Psychosocial Stress: Joint Effect of Early Life Stress and Oxytocin

Childhood Abuse Is Related to Working Memory Impairment for Positive Emotion in Female University Students

DNA methylation of the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4) is associated with brain function involved in processing emotional stimuli

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