Early life stress predicts trajectories of emotional problems and hippocampal volume in adolescence.
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry
; 33(7): 2331-2342, 2024 Jul.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38135803
ABSTRACT
Exposure to early life stress (ELS) has been consistently associated with adverse emotional and neural consequences in youth. The development of brain structures such as the hippocampus, which plays a significant role in stress and emotion regulation, may be particularly salient in the development of psychopathology. Prior work has documented smaller hippocampal volume (HCV) in relation to both ELS exposure and risk for psychopathology. We used longitudinal k-means clustering to identify simultaneous trajectories of HCV and emotional problems in 155 youth across three assessments conducted approximately two years apart (mean baseline age = 11.33 years, 57% female). We also examined depressive symptoms and resilience approximately two years after the third timepoint. We identified three clusters of participants:
a cluster with high HCV and low emotional problems; a cluster with low HCV and high emotional problems; and a cluster with low HCV and low emotional problems. Importantly, severity of ELS was associated with greater likelihood of belonging to the low HCV/high symptom cluster than to the low HCV/low symptom cluster. Further, low HCV/high symptom participants had more depressive symptoms and lower resilience scores than did participants in the low HCV/low symptom, but not than in the high HCV/low symptom cluster. Our findings suggest that smaller HCV indexes biological sensitivity to stress. This adds to our understanding of the ways in which ELS can affect hippocampal and emotional development in young people and points to hippocampal volume as a marker of susceptibility to context.Palavras-chave
Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Estresse Psicológico
/
Hipocampo
Limite:
Adolescent
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Child
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Female
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Humans
/
Male
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry
Assunto da revista:
PEDIATRIA
/
PSIQUIATRIA
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Estados Unidos