Early Life Adversity Contributes to Impaired Cognition and Impulsive Behavior: Studies from the Oklahoma Family Health Patterns Project

Abstract

Background Stressful early life experience may have adverse consequences in adulthood and may contribute to behavioral characteristics that increase vulnerability to alcoholism. We examined early life adverse experience in relation to cognitive deficits and impulsive behaviors with a reference to risk factors for alcoholism. Methods We tested 386 healthy young adults (18 – 30 years of age; 224 women; 171 family history positive for alcoholism) using a composite measure of adverse life experience (low socioeconomic status plus personally experienced adverse events including physical and sexual abuse and separation from parents) as a predictor of performance on the Shipley Institute of Living scale, the Stroop color-word task, and a delay-discounting task assessing preference for smaller immediate rewards in favor of larger delayed rewards. Body mass index was examined as an early indicator of altered health behavior. Results Greater levels of adversity predicted higher Stroop interference scores (F = 3.07, p = .048), faster discounting of delayed rewards (F = 3.79, p = .024), lower Shipley mental age scores (F = 4.01, p = .019), and higher body mass indexes in those with a family history of alcoholism (F = 3.40, p = .035). These effects were not explained by age, sex, race, education, or depression. Conclusion The results indicate a long-term impact of stressful life experience on cognitive function, impulsive behaviors, and early health indicators that may contribute to risk in persons with a family history of alcoholism.

Does Trauma Impair Self-Control? Differences in Delaying Gratification Between Former Indentured Child Laborers and Nontraumatized Controls

“…The findings of this study correspond to previous investigations detecting steeper discounting rates in individuals with psychopathology than in healthy controls (Heerey, Robinson, McMahon, & Gold, 2007;Kirby et al, 1999). The results are also in agreement with the finding that individuals with stressful experiences during early life tend to prefer immediate low rewards (Lovallo et al, 2013) or show lower levels of self-control (Henschel et al, 2013).…”

“…A longitudinal study with a sample of children examined the association between cumulative risk exposure (e.g., poverty, exposure to violence) and self-regulation 4 years later and found that children with a higher cumulative risk because of poverty or exposure to violence demonstrated a reduced ability to self-regulate behavior, that is, a reduced ability to delay gratification (Evans, Fuller-Rowell, & Doan, 2012). Similar findings were reported in another study with young adults who had been exposed to or subjected to adversities during childhood and adolescence, thus indicating that experiencing stress may prompt individuals to choose smaller, immediate rewards at the expense of larger delayed rewards (Lovallo et al, 2013). Another study examined self-control in physically and sexually abused women and found that a history of abuse and work status were significant predictors of self-control (Henschel, de Bruin, & Möhler, 2013).…”

Prevalence and correlates of pain interference in older adults: Why treating the whole body and mind is necessary

“…Rather, the ability to cope with the adverse event, changes in the ability to cope with future events, and the inability to attenuate the stress response once initiated may be more relevant to the development of pain (Goosby, 2013). Consistently, studies have shown that adverse events can alter the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, thereby, increasing chronic stress (Lovallo et al, 2013). …”

“…Traumatic events across the lifespan can have a dramatic effect upon future cognitions, behavior, and disease development (e.g., Lovallo et al, 2013). Moreover, studies consistently have shown that traumatic experiences are associated with the development of persistent pain (Hart- Johnson and Green, 2012; Paras et al, 2009; Wuest et al, 2010).…”

Consequences of Adolescent Ethanol Consumption on Risk Preference and Orbitofrontal Cortex Encoding of Reward

“…Such stress could be the result of a number of uncontrolled aspects of the study, including shipment from the breeding facility (Charles River) to the laboratory and differences in maternal care at the breeding facility. Early life stress clearly has an important role in both impulsivity (Lovallo, 2013;Lovallo et al, 2013) and drug effects (Enoch, 2011), and thus warrants additional study to determine what aspects of the results presented here may be attributable to early life stress, alcohol, or the interaction between the two.…”