Impact of Childhood Trauma on Executive Function in Adolescence—Mediating Functional Brain Networks and Prediction of High-Risk Drinking

Silveira, Sarita; Shah, Raj; Nooner, Kate B.; Nagel, Bonnie J.; Tapert, Susan F.; Bellis, Michael D. De; Mishra, Jyoti

doi:10.1016/j.bpsc.2020.01.011

Cited by 35 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…From a huge literature on adult retrospective studies, we understand that these individuals demonstrate scholastic underachievement, school dropout, and juvenile delinquency, are vulnerable to mental illness, and have alcohol and substance abuse problems that are all precursors to a lifetime of instability 62,63 . Notably, in a recent largesample adolescent study conducted on a National Institute of Health dataset, Silveira et al 64 demonstrate that functional connectivity in distributed developing brain networks is impacted by childhood adversity; these functional networks include the important dACC region, and in turn mediate poor executive function and predict alcohol abuse in future years. This research dovetails with our neural findings in this international cohort, which also shows that dACC functional connectivity is negatively associated with the severity of childhood neglect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Closed-loop digital meditation for neurocognitive and behavioral development in adolescents with childhood neglect

et al. 2020

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Adverse childhood experiences are linked to poor attentive behaviors during adolescence, as well as increased risk for mental health disorders in adults. However, no study has yet tested targeted interventions to optimize neurocognitive processes in this population. Here, we investigated closed-loop digital interventions in a double-blind randomized controlled study in adolescents with childhood neglect, and evaluated the outcomes using multimodal assessments of neuroimaging, cognitive, behavioral, and academic evaluations. In the primary neuroimaging results, we demonstrate that a closed-loop digital meditation intervention can strengthen functional connectivity of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) in the cingulo-opercular network, which is critically developing during the adolescent period. Second, this intervention enhanced sustained attention and interference-resolution abilities, and also reduced behavioral hyperactivity at a 1-year follow-up. Superior academic performance was additionally observed in adolescents who underwent the digital meditation intervention. Finally, changes in dACC functional connectivity significantly correlated with improvements in sustained attention, hyperactivity, and academic performance. This first study demonstrates that closed-loop digital meditation practice can facilitate development of important aspects of neurocognition and real-life behaviors in adolescents with early childhood neglect.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Closed-loop digital meditation for neurocognitive and behavioral development in adolescents with childhood neglect

et al. 2020

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“…Much of the extant literature is based on small sample sizes, which are likely to be underpowered (Szucs and Ioannidis, 2020), and many older studies have also made use of overly-liberal multiple comparison correction methods, which may be subject to inflated type 1 error rates (Eklund et al, 2016;Cox et al, 2017). However, larger cohort-based functional imaging studies of resilience are starting to emerge, and some key findings have now been replicated in well-powered samples (e.g., Corral-Frías et al, 2015;Silveira et al, 2020). Finally, the identification of robust neuroimaging biomarkers (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, Silveira and colleagues recently used task-free imaging data from the NCANDA cohort (N=392) to show that an association between childhood trauma severity and executive function difficulties was mediated by lower functional connectivity between a network of hub regions implicated in cognitive/behavioural control and sensorimotor integration (specifically, the postcentral and precentral gyri, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, intraparietal sulcus, and anterior insula cortex). Preserved interconnectivity between these frontal regions (particularly the postcentral gyrus and dorsal anterior cingulate) was related to lower reported executive dysfunction and baseline, and predicted lower likelihood of high-risk drinking behaviour at 1-4 year follow-up (Silveira et al, 2020). This suggests that in addition to protecting against post-traumatic stress symptoms, preserved prefrontal function may be an important path towards resilience to problematic coping behaviours that may also emerge following trauma, such as substance abuse.…”

Section: Cognitive Flexibility and Cognitive Controlmentioning

confidence: 92%

Neuroimaging resilience to trauma: convergent evidence and challenges for future research

Norbury¹,

Mm²,

Feder³

2019

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Resilience, or the phenomenon of successful adaptation following significant trauma exposure, is a complex, multidimensional, and dynamic process. To date, research on neural mechanisms involved in human resilience has comprised of two major research streams – involving individuals with childhood and adulthood trauma exposure, respectively. Although there are systematic differences in how both trauma and resilience have been defined across these two bodies of work, some striking regions of convergence emerge when considering the literature as a whole. Here, we review neuroimaging studies of resilience in both trauma-exposed individuals and the general population, alongside discussion of some of the methodological difficulties involved in quantifying trauma and resilience in human participants. Results highlight the involvement of brain networks implicated in emotion regulation (medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala), responses to rewards (ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex), and attentional control and cognitive flexibility (prefrontal cortex and hippocampus) in fostering positive outcomes following trauma. There is also emerging evidence for a role of neural circuitry subserving interoceptive awareness (in particular, the anterior insula cortex) in resilience. Further, we discuss several ongoing issues in neuroimaging study design and analysis that will need to be addressed in order to enable us to harness insight from such studies to improve treatments for – or, ideally, guard against the development of – debilitating post-traumatic stress syndromes.

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“…A recent longitudinal study provides evidence that, while both early life deprivation and threat increase risk for internalizing and externalizing psychopathology in adolescents, only the link between childhood deprivation and developing externalizing behaviors is mediated by impaired cognitive abilities (42). In our recent cross-sectional research on a subsample of the current cohort of adolescents, we identified dACC functional connectivity among that of other regions, to mediate the association between childhood adversity and EF self-reports (43). This study investigated the association between childhood adversity, in the forms of child abuse and child neglect, and developing functional brain connectivity underlying EF.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing Functional Network Connectivity of the Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex Mediates Externalizing Psychopathology in Adolescents with Child Neglect

Silveira

Boney

Tapert

et al. 2021

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Childhood adversity in form of child abuse and neglect is associated with elevated risk for psychopathologies. We investigated whether development of functional brain networks important for executive function (EF) could serve as potential mediators of this association. We analyzed data of 475 adolescents, a subsample of the multisite longitudinal NCANDA (National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence) cohort with completed measures of childhood trauma, resting-state functional brain connectivity data, and internalizing/externalizing psychopathological syndrome data at baseline and follow-up years 1-4. Using parallel process latent growth models, we found that childhood adversity was associated with increased risk for externalizing/internalizing behaviors. We specifically investigated whether functional connectivity of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) to brain regions within the cingulo-opercular (CO) network, a well-known EF network that underlies control of attention and self-regulation, mediates the association between adversity and psychopathological behaviors. We found that childhood adversity, specifically neglect was negatively associated with functional connectivity of the dACC within the CO network, and that this connectivity mediated the association between child neglect and externalizing behaviors. Our study advances a mechanistic understanding of how childhood adversity may impact the development of psychopathology, highlighting the relevance of dACC functional networks particularly for externalizing psychopathology.

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Impact of Childhood Trauma on Executive Function in Adolescence—Mediating Functional Brain Networks and Prediction of High-Risk Drinking

Cited by 35 publications

References 56 publications

Closed-loop digital meditation for neurocognitive and behavioral development in adolescents with childhood neglect

Closed-loop digital meditation for neurocognitive and behavioral development in adolescents with childhood neglect

Neuroimaging resilience to trauma: convergent evidence and challenges for future research

Developing Functional Network Connectivity of the Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex Mediates Externalizing Psychopathology in Adolescents with Child Neglect

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