Impacts of early deprivation on behavioral and neural measures of executive function in early adolescence.

Children reared in institutional settings experience early deprivation that has lasting implications for multiple aspects of neurocognitive functioning, including executive function (EF). Changes in brain development are thought to contribute to these persistent EF challenges, but little research has used fMRI to investigate EF-related brain activity in children with a history of early deprivation. This study examined behavioral and neural data from a response conflict task in 12-14-year-olds who spent varying lengths of time in institutional care prior to adoption (N = 84; age at adoption - mean: 15.85 months, median: 12 months, range: 4-60 months). In initial analyses, earlier- and later-adopted (EA, LA) youth were compared to a group of children raised in their biological families (non-adopted, NA). NA youth performed significantly more accurately than LA youth, with EA youth falling in between. Imaging data suggested that previously institutionalized (PI) youth activated additional frontoparietal regions, including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, as compared to NA youth. In addition, EA youth uniquely activated medial prefrontal regions, and LA uniquely activated parietal regions during this task. A separate analysis in a larger group of PI youth examined whether behavioral or brain measures of EF varied with the duration of deprivation experienced. Duration of deprivation was negatively associated with activation of default mode network (DMN) regions. Overall, results suggest that there are lasting effects of deprivation on EF, but that those who are removed from institutional care earlier may be able to recruit additional neural resources as a compensatory mechanism.

Testing the consequences of alcohol, cannabis, and nicotine use on hippocampal volume: a quasi-experimental cotwin control analysis of young adult twins.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol, cannabis, and nicotine use are highly comorbid and alarmingly prevalent in young adults. The hippocampus may be particularly sensitive to substance exposure. This remains largely untested in humans and familial risk may confound exposure effects. We extend prior work on alcohol and hippocampal volume in women by testing common and unique substance use effects and the potential moderating role of sex on hippocampal volume during emerging adulthood. A quasi-experimental cotwin control (CTC) design was used to separate familial risk from exposure consequences. METHODS: In a population-based sample of 435 24-year-old same-sex twins (58% women), dimensional measures (e.g. frequency, amount) of alcohol, cannabis, and nicotine use across emerging adulthood were assessed. Hippocampal volume was assessed using MRI. RESULTS: Greater substance use was significantly associated with lower hippocampal volume for women but not men. The same pattern was observed for alcohol, cannabis, and nicotine. CTC analyses provided evidence that hippocampal effects likely reflected familial risk and the consequence of substance use in general and alcohol and nicotine in particular; cannabis effects were in the expected direction but not significant. Within-pair mediation analyses suggested that the effect of alcohol use on the hippocampus may reflect, in part, comorbid nicotine use. CONCLUSIONS: The observed hippocampal volume deviations in women likely reflected substance-related premorbid familial risk and the consequences of smoking and, to a lesser degree, drinking. Findings contribute to a growing body of work suggesting heightened risk among women toward experiencing deleterious effects of substance exposure on the still-developing young adult hippocampus.

Reduced Hippocampal Volumes in Children with History of Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy after Therapeutic Hypothermia.

Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) remains a significant cause of disability despite treatment with therapeutic hypothermia (TH). Many survive with more subtle deficits that affect daily functioning and school performance. We have previously shown an early indication of hippocampal changes in infants with HIE despite TH. The aim of this study was to evaluate the hippocampal volume via MRI and memory function at 5 years of age. A cohort of children followed from birth returned for a 5-year follow-up (n = 10 HIE treated with TH, n = 8 healthy controls). The children underwent brain MRI and neurodevelopmental testing to assess their brain volume, general development, and memory function. Children with HIE had smaller hippocampal volumes than the controls despite no differences in the total brain volume (p = 0.02). Children with HIE generally scored within the average range on developmental testing. Though there was no difference in the memory scores between these groups, there was a positive within-group correlation between the hippocampal volume and memory scores in children with HIE (sentence recall r = 0.66, p = 0.038). There was no relationship between newborn memory function and 5-year hippocampal size. Children with HIE treated with TH experienced significant and lasting changes to the hippocampus despite improvements in survival and severe disability. Future studies should target diminishing injury to the hippocampus to improve overall outcomes.

Impact of childhood maltreatment and resilience on behavioral and neural patterns of inhibitory control during emotional distraction.

Exposure to childhood maltreatment (CM) may disrupt typical development of neural systems underlying impulse control and emotion regulation. Yet resilient outcomes are observed in some individuals exposed to CM. Individual differences in adult functioning may result from variation in inhibitory control in the context of emotional distractions, underpinned by cognitive-affective brain circuits. Thirty-eight healthy adults with a history of substantiated CM and 34 nonmaltreated adults from the same longitudinal sample performed a Go/No-Go task in which task-relevant stimuli (letters) were presented at the center of task-irrelevant, negative, or neutral images, while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. The comparison group, but not the maltreated group, made increased inhibitory control errors in the context of negative, but not neutral, distractor images. In addition, the comparison group had greater right inferior frontal gyrus and bilateral frontal pole activation during inhibitory control blocks with negative compared to neutral background images relative to the CM group. Across the full sample, greater adaptive functioning in everyday contexts was associated with superior inhibitory control and greater right frontal pole activation. Results suggest that resilience following early adversity is associated with enhanced attention and behavioral regulation in the context of task-irrelevant negative emotional stimuli in a laboratory setting.

The Effects of Alcohol and Cannabis Use on the Cortical Thickness of Cognitive Control and Salience Brain Networks in Emerging Adulthood: A Co-twin Control Study.

BACKGROUND: Impairments in inhibitory control and its underlying brain networks (control/salience areas) are associated with substance misuse. Research often assumes a causal substance exposure effect on brain structure. This assumption remains largely untested, and other factors (e.g., familial risk) may confound exposure effects. We leveraged a genetically informative sample of twins aged 24 years and a quasi-experimental co-twin control design to separate alcohol or cannabis exposure effects during emerging adulthood from familial risk on control/salience network cortical thickness. METHODS: In a population-based sample of 436 twins aged 24 years, dimensional measures of alcohol and cannabis use (e.g., frequency, density, quantity, intoxications) across emerging adulthood were assessed. Cortical thickness of control/salience network areas were assessed using magnetic resonance imaging and defined by a fine-grained cortical atlas. RESULTS: Greater alcohol, but not cannabis, misuse was associated with reduced thickness of prefrontal (e.g., dorso/ventrolateral, right frontal operculum) and frontal medial cortices, as well as temporal lobe, intraparietal sulcus, insula, parietal operculum, precuneus, and parietal medial areas. Effects were predominately (pre)frontal and right lateralized. Co-twin control analyses suggested that the effects likely reflect both the familial predisposition to misuse alcohol and, specifically for lateral prefrontal, frontal/parietal medial, and right frontal operculum, an alcohol exposure effect. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides novel evidence that alcohol-related reductions in cortical thickness of control/salience brain networks likely represent the effects of alcohol exposure and premorbid characteristics of the genetic predisposition to misuse alcohol. The dual effects of these two alcohol-related causal influences have important and complementary implications regarding public health and prevention efforts to curb youth drinking.

Orbitofrontal cortex thickness and substance use disorders in emerging adulthood: causal inferences from a co-twin control/discordant twin study.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Research linking orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) structure and substance use disorders (SUDs) is largely correlational and often implies a causal effect of addiction/substance exposure on the brain, but familial risk factors (e.g. genetic liability) may confound these associations. We tested whether associations between alcohol, cannabis and tobacco use disorders and OFC thickness reflected the potential causal effects of familial risk or SUDs-related consequences (e.g. substance exposure). DESIGN: A co-twin control/discordant twin design separated familial risk confounding from SUD-related consequences. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: A population-based sample of 436 24-year-old twins (62% monozygotic) from the Minnesota Twin Family Study, USA. MEASUREMENTS: Alcohol, cannabis and tobacco use disorders were assessed using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview-Substance Abuse Module. Cortical thickness of the medial and lateral OFC (mOFC and lOFC, respectively) was assessed using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). FINDINGS: Lower mOFC (P-values ≤ 0.006) but not lOFC (P-values ≥ 0.190) thickness was observed in diagnosed individuals (n = 185) relative to non-SUD controls (n = 251). Co-twin control analyses offered evidence that mOFC associations were consistent with familial risk across SUDs (between-pair effect: P-values ≤ 0.047) and the independent consequences of having an alcohol or cannabis use disorder (within-pair effect: P-values ≤ 0.024). That is, within alcohol/cannabis discordant twin pairs, affected twins had significantly lower mOFC thickness compared with their unaffected co-twins. CONCLUSIONS: A confounder-adjusted analysis of the Minnesota Twin Family Study appeared to indicate that, beyond a substance use disorders general familial risk effect, the experience of an alcohol or cannabis use disorder in emerging adulthood reduces the thickness of the medial orbitofrontal cortex, a region associated with value-guided decision-making.

Accelerated maturation in functional connectivity following early life stress: Circuit specific or broadly distributed?

Psychosocial acceleration theory and other frameworks adapted from life history predict a link between early life stress and accelerated maturation in several physiological systems. Those findings led researchers to suggest that the emotion-regulatory brain circuits of previously-institutionalized (PI) youth are more mature than youth raised in their biological families (non-adopted, or NA, youth) during emotion tasks. Whether this accelerated maturation is evident during resting-state fMRI has not yet been established. Resting-state fMRI data from 83 early adolescents (Mage = 12.9 years, SD = 0.57 years) including 41 PI and 42 NA youth, were used to examine seed-based functional connectivity between the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Additional whole-brain analyses assessed group differences in functional connectivity and associations with cognitive performance and behavior. We found group differences in amygdala - vmPFC connectivity that may be consistent with accelerated maturation following early life stress. Further, whole-brain connectivity analyses revealed group differences associated with internalizing and externalizing symptoms. However, the majority of whole-brain results were not consistent with an accelerated maturation framework. Our results suggest early life stress in the form of institutional care is associated with circuit-specific alterations to a frontolimbic emotion-regulatory system, while revealing limited differences in more broadly distributed networks.

Differential brain activity as a function of social evaluative stress in early adolescence: Brain function and salivary cortisol.

Understanding individual differences in neural responses to stressful environments is an important avenue of research throughout development. These differences may be especially critical during adolescence, which is characterized by opportunities for healthy development and increased susceptibility to the development of psychopathology. While the neural correlates of the psychosocial stress response have been investigated in adults, these links have not been explored during development. Using a new task, the Minnesota Imaging Stress Test in Children (MISTiC), differences in activation are found in fusiform gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, insula, and anterior cingulate cortex when comparing a stressful math task to a nonstressful math task. The MISTiC task successfully elicits cortisol responses in a similar proportion of adolescents as in behavioral studies while collecting brain imaging data. Cortisol responders and nonresponders did not differ in their perceived stress level or behavioral performance during the task despite differences in neuroendocrine function. Future research will be able to leverage the MISTiC task for many purposes, including probing associations between individual differences in stress responses with environmental conditions, personality differences, and the development of psychopathology.

Trait neuroticism and emotion neurocircuitry: Functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence for a failure in emotion regulation.

Though theory suggests that individual differences in neuroticism (a tendency to experience negative emotions) would be associated with altered functioning of the amygdala (which has been linked with emotionality and emotion dysregulation in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood), results of functional neuroimaging studies have been contradictory and inconclusive. We aimed to clarify the relationship between neuroticism and three hypothesized neural markers derived from functional magnetic resonance imaging during negative emotion face processing: amygdala activation, amygdala habituation, and amygdala-prefrontal connectivity, each of which plays an important role in the experience and regulation of emotions. We used general linear models to examine the relationship between trait neuroticism and the hypothesized neural markers in a large sample of over 500 young adults. Although neuroticism was not significantly associated with magnitude of amygdala activation or amygdala habituation, it was associated with amygdala-ventromedial prefrontal cortex connectivity, which has been implicated in emotion regulation. Results suggest that trait neuroticism may represent a failure in top-down control and regulation of emotional reactions, rather than overactive emotion generation processes, per se. These findings suggest that neuroticism, which has been associated with increased rates of transdiagnostic psychopathology, may represent a failure in the inhibitory neurocircuitry associated with emotion regulation.

Childhood Maltreatment Disrupts Brain-Mediated Pathways Between Adolescent Maternal Relationship Quality and Positive Adult Outcomes.

The quality of early caregiving may partially shape brain structure and circuits involved in regulating emotions, including the frontal cortex, affecting vulnerability to the development of psychopathology and maladaptation. Given the profound impact of child maltreatment (CM) on psychological and neural development, we tested whether CM alters the pathways linking mother-adolescent relationship, frontal cortex, and adult outcomes. We used structural equation modeling to investigate whether CM history affected the association between mother-child relationship quality during early adolescence, frontal lobe volume in adulthood, and adult internalizing and externalizing symptomatology and competence. Participants from a longitudinal high-risk, low-income sample included 48 adults with a history of CM and 40 adults without such history (M = 30.0 years). Results showed that greater frontal lobe volume predicted higher levels of adult adaptive functioning and fewer adult internalizing symptoms but showed no relation to adult externalizing symptoms. Frontal lobe volume significantly mediated the effect of adolescent maternal relationship quality on both adult internalizing symptoms and adult adaptive functioning, but only for individuals with no maltreatment history. Given the observed relationship between frontal lobe volume and healthy adult functioning across the full sample, it will be important to identify protective factors in maltreated individuals that foster frontal lobe development.

Alexithymia is associated with neural reactivity to masked emotional faces in adolescents who self-harm.

BACKGROUND: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a major, trans-diagnostic mental health problem among adolescents. Alexithymia has been identified as a developmental risk factor for NSSI. Research on how alexithymia relates to the neurobiology of automatic emotion processing is only beginning to emerge. This study evaluates the relationship between alexithymic features and neural responses to automatic processing of emotional content in adolescents with NSSI. METHODS: 25 female adolescents (ages 13-21) with a history of repeated engagement in NSSI completed the Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Difficulties with Emotion Regulation Scale and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a task in which participants were exposed to masked emotions. RESULTS: One facet of alexithymia, limited internal emotion awareness or externally-oriented thinking (EOT), was related to differential reactivity to masked emotional faces in clusters in the right supramarginal gyrus and right inferior frontal gyrus. Follow-up assessment of regional reactivity revealed that greater EOT is associated with lower activation to masked happy faces but higher activation to masked fearful faces. Other facets of alexithymia did not show relationships with reactivity to masked emotional faces. LIMITATIONS: This is a cross-sectional and small sample that only includes females, which may attenuate generalizability of findings. CONCLUSIONS: We report neural correlates of multiple facets of alexithymia in adolescents with NSSI. Among adolescents who self-harm, those with higher levels of EOT may be less alert to subtle positively-valenced emotion cues. For this subset of adolescents with NSSI, interventions designed to enhance mental representation of emotional responses and attention to positive emotions may be appropriate.

Individual differences in ERP measures of executive function in early childhood: Relation to low-risk preterm birth and parent-reported behavior.

Although behavioral studies have demonstrated that executive function (EF) develops rapidly during early childhood, few studies have investigated neural systems supporting EF during the preschool years. These systems are sensitive to variations in children's early life experiences, including preterm birth. The current study collected behavioral and event related potential (ERP) data during an EF task (directional Stroop) in a sample of 150 full-term and low-risk preterm children aged 4-years. Children's IQ and processing speed (WPPSI-III), and parent report of EF (BRIEF-P), were also measured. Forty-nine children born full-term and 43 low-risk preterm children provided useable ERP data. Similar to prior studies with adults and older children, preschool-aged children showed modulation of ERP components (N2, P3) by cognitive conflict. Effects of trial type were also present for early attentional components (N1 and P2). Exploratory analyses demonstrated that ERP measures of EF were correlated with individual differences in cognitive and behavioral functioning in both full-term and low-risk preterm populations. Future research investigating the neural correlates of early measures of EF in low-risk preterm children and other at-risk groups is warranted to better understand how trajectories of EF development are altered in the first years of life.

Risk taking, decision-making, and brain volume in youth adopted internationally from institutional care.

Early life stress in the form of early institutional care has been shown to have wide-ranging impacts on the biological and behavioral development of young children. Studies of brain structure using magnetic resonance imaging have reported decreased prefrontal volumes, and a large literature has detailed decreased executive function (EF) in post-institutionalized (PI) youth. Little is known about how these findings relate to decision-making, particularly in PI youth entering adolescence-a period often characterized by social transition and increased reliance upon EF skills and the still-maturing prefrontal regions that support them. As decision-making in risky situations can be an especially important milestone in early adolescence, a clearer knowledge of the relationship between risky decision making and prefrontal structures in post-institutionalized youth is needed. The youth version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task and a two-deck variant of the Iowa Gambling Task were used to assess risky decision-making in post-institutionalized youth and a community control group (N = 74, PI = 44, Non-adopted = 30; mean age = 12.93). Participants also completed a structural MRI scan for the assessment of group differences in brain structure. We hypothesized that participants adopted from institutions would display poorer performance on risky-decision making tasks and smaller brain volumes compared to non-adopted youth. Results indicated that later-adopted participants made fewer risky decisions than those experiencing shorter periods of deprivation or no institutional rearing. Further, decreased prefrontal volumes were observed in later-adopted youth and were significantly associated with task performance. Our results suggest that changes in risky-decision making behavior and brain structure are associated with the duration of early institutional care.

Separable Effects of Childhood Maltreatment and Adult Adaptive Functioning on Amygdala Connectivity During Emotion Processing.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with a history of maltreatment show altered amygdala reactivity to emotional stimuli, atypical frontal regulatory control, and differences in frontolimbic connectivity compared with nonmaltreated controls. However, despite early trauma, many individuals who experience maltreatment show resilience or adaptive functioning in adulthood including positive social, educational, and occupational outcomes. METHODS: The present study used a psychophysiological interaction model to examine the effect of adult adaptive functioning on group differences between maltreated and nonmaltreated adults in task-based amygdala functional connectivity. The task used was a facial emotion-matching paradigm. Functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were collected from 41 adults with a history of substantiated childhood maltreatment and 39 nonmaltreated adults who were well matched on demographic variables, all of whom had been studied since childhood. Adaptive functioning was measured with a composite score of success on stage-salient developmental tasks. RESULTS: Consistent with previous research, we found differences in task-related amygdala functional connectivity between the maltreated and nonmaltreated groups. Effects were seen in the left hippocampus, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, and right thalamus. However, when adult functioning was included in the model, maltreatment-related differences in amygdala connectivity were observed only in the hippocampus. Adult adaptive functioning independently predicted task-related amygdala connectivity in frontal and parietal regions across the entire sample. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that frontolimbic functional connectivity is predicted by positive developmental adaptation in this high-risk population, regardless of maltreatment history, whereas intralimbic connectivity (amygdala and hippocampus) is more specifically associated with maltreatment history.

Problematic alcohol use and hippocampal volume in a female sample: disentangling cause from consequence using a co-twin control study design.

BACKGROUND: Although there is extensive evidence that problematic alcohol use is associated with smaller hippocampal volume, the typical cross-sectional study design cannot determine whether hippocampal deviations reflect pre-existing liability toward problematic alcohol use or instead reflect an alcohol exposure-related effect. We used the co-twin control study design, which capitalizes upon differences within a twin pair in levels of drinking, to differentiate pre-existing liability from an effect of alcohol exposure. METHODS: The sample included 100 female twins, prospectively assessed from ages 11 to 24. Problematic alcohol use was assessed dimensionally and included indicators of quantity, frequency, and density of alcohol use and intoxication. Hippocampal volume was assessed using magnetic resonance imaging. RESULTS: Problematic alcohol use (proximal and cumulative) was associated with significantly smaller left and right hippocampal volume. Follow-up co-twin control analyses that partitioned individual-level alcohol effects into pre-existing, familial liability and non-shared alcohol exposure-related effects indicated that this association reflected alcohol exposure. Greater alcohol using twins had smaller hippocampal volume relative to lesser alcohol using co-twins, beyond effects of their shared genetic and environmental liability toward problematic alcohol use. Results held accounting for recent alcohol use, other substance use, externalizing and internalizing psychopathology, personality traits, trauma exposure, and menstrual phase. CONCLUSIONS: The association between problematic alcohol use and smaller hippocampal volume likely reflects an alcohol exposure-related effect. Differentiating pre-existing brain deviations that confer risk for problematic alcohol use from those that reflect effects of alcohol on the brain will inform etiological models of addiction and further prevention and intervention efforts.

Multi-modal neuroimaging of adolescents with non-suicidal self-injury: Amygdala functional connectivity.

BACKGROUND: Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a significant mental health problem among adolescents. Research is needed to clarify the neurobiology of NSSI and identify candidate neurobiological targets for interventions. Based on prior research implicating heightened negative affect and amygdala hyperactivity in NSSI, we pursued a systems approach to characterize amygdala functional connectivity networks during rest (resting-state functional connectivity [RSFC)]) and a task (task functional connectivity [TFC]) in adolescents with NSSI. METHOD: We examined amygdala networks in female adolescents with NSSI and healthy controls (n = 45) using resting-state fMRI and a negative emotion face-matching fMRI task designed to activate the amygdala. Connectivity analyses included amygdala RSFC, amygdala TFC, and psychophysiological interactions (PPI) between amygdala connectivity and task conditions. RESULTS: Compared to healthy controls, adolescents with NSSI showed atypical amygdala-frontal connectivity during rest and task; greater amygdala RSFC in supplementary motor area (SMA) and dorsal anterior cingulate; and differential amygdala-occipital connectivity between rest and task. After correcting for depression symptoms, amygdala-SMA RSFC abnormalities, among others, remained significant. LIMITATIONS: This study's limitations include its cross-sectional design and its absence of a psychiatric control group. CONCLUSIONS: Using a multi-modal approach, we identified widespread amygdala circuitry anomalies in adolescents with NSSI. While deficits in amygdala-frontal connectivity (driven by depression symptoms) replicates prior work in depression, hyperconnectivity between amygdala and SMA (independent of depression symptoms) has not been previously reported. This circuit may represent an important mechanism underlying the link between negative affect and habitual behaviors. These abnormalities may represent intervention targets for adolescents with NSSI.

Brain activation in response to overt and covert fear and happy faces in women with borderline personality disorder.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a serious condition involving emotion dysregulation. Past research has identified BPD-associated differences within fronto-limbic circuitry during conditions of processing negative emotion. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigms that incorporate overt and covert (masked) presentations of emotional stimuli can provide complementary information about neural systems underlying emotion processing (e.g., both slow [overt] and fast [covert; automatic] processing pathways). This study examined brain activation during processing of overt and covert presentations of emotional faces in 12 women with BPD and 12 age-matched healthy controls. To assess a range of emotional valence and arousal, we examined responses to fear, happy and neutral expressions. All participants underwent an fMRI scanning session in which participants passively viewed emotional faces. Scanning sessions consisted of 5 runs including: (1) Overt Fear (OF) versus Neutral (N), (2) Covert Fear (CF) versus Covert Neutral (CN), (3) Overt Happy (OH) versus N, (4) Covert Happy (CH) versus CN, and (5) N versus fixation. We compared whole-brain activation between groups for each run. In response to overt fear, BPD patients showed greater activation both in left amygdala and in several frontal cortical regions. There were no significant differences in brain activation in response to overt happy faces. In response to covert fear and covert happy stimuli, the BPD group also showed greater activation than controls in several regions including frontal and temporal cortical regions, as well as cerebellum and thalamus. These findings add to prior reports suggesting increased amygdala activation in BPD, but we found this only in the overt fear versus fixation condition. In this sample, BPD patients showed hyper-activation, rather than hypo-activation, of cortical regulatory regions during overt fear. Enhanced cortical recruitment in response to covert fear and happy faces in BPD could reflect a more extended response system in which stimuli that typically only activate automatic pathways are additionally tapping into cortical regulatory systems. The observation of this pattern both in response to fear and in response to happy presentations suggests that the effect of arousal may be as or more impactful than the effect of emotional valence.

Long-term consequences of childhood maltreatment: Altered amygdala functional connectivity.

Childhood maltreatment is a serious individual, familial, and societal threat that compromises healthy development and is associated with lasting alterations to emotion perception, processing, and regulation (Cicchetti & Curtis, 2005; Pollak, Cicchetti, Hornung, & Reed, 2000; Pollak & Tolley-Schell, 2003). Individuals with a history of maltreatment show altered structural and functional brain development in both frontal and limbic structures (Hart & Rubia, 2012). In particular, previous research has identified hyperactive amygdala responsivity associated with childhood maltreatment (e.g., Dannlowski et al., 2012). However, less is known about the impact of maltreatment on the relationship between the amygdala and other brain regions. The present study employed an emotion processing functional magnetic resonance imaging task to examine task-based activation and functional connectivity in adults who experienced maltreatment as children. The sample included adults with a history of substantiated childhood maltreatment (n = 33) and comparison adults (n = 38) who were well matched on demographic variables, all of whom have been studied prospectively since childhood. The maltreated group exhibited greater activation than comparison participants in the prefrontal cortex and basal ganglia. In addition, maltreated adults showed increased amygdala connectivity with the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. The results suggest that the intense early stress of childhood maltreatment is associated with lasting alterations to frontolimbic circuitry.

Duration of early adversity and structural brain development in post-institutionalized adolescents.

For children reared in institutions for orphaned or abandoned children, multiple aspects of the early environment deviate from species-typical experiences, which may lead to alterations in neurobehavioral development. Although the effects of early deprivation and early life stress have been studied extensively in animal models, less is known about implications for human brain development. This structural neuroimaging study examined the long-term neural correlates of early adverse rearing environments in a large sample of 12-14 year old children (N = 110) who were internationally adopted from institutional care as young children (median age at adoption = 12 months) relative to a same age, comparison group reared with their biological families in the United States. History of institutional rearing was associated with broad changes in cortical volume even after controlling for variability in head size. Results suggested that prefrontal cortex was especially susceptible to early adversity, with significant reductions in volume (driven primarily by differences in surface area rather than cortical thickness) in post-institutionalized youth. Hippocampal volumes showed an association with duration of institutional care, with later-adopted children showing the smallest volumes relative to non-adopted controls. Larger amygdala volumes were not detected in this sample of post-institutionalized children. These data suggest that this temporally discrete period of early deprivation is associated with persisting alterations in brain morphology even years after exposure. Furthermore, these alterations are not completely ameliorated by subsequent environmental enrichment by early adolescence.

Quantifying familial influences on brain activation during the monetary incentive delay task: an adolescent monozygotic twin study.

Although altered brain activation during reward tasks has been found in a number of heritable psychiatric disorders and health outcomes, the familial nature of reward-related brain activation remains unexplored. In this study, we investigated the degree to which the magnitude of mesocorticolimbic reward system signal intensities in anticipation of reward during the monetary incentive delay (MID) task was similar within 46 pairs of adolescent, monozygotic twins. Significant within-pair correlations in brain activation during anticipation of gain were found in one third of the 18 reward-related regions investigated. These regions were the right nucleus accumbens, left and right posterior caudate, right anterior caudate, left insula, and anterior cingulate cortex. This serves as evidence for a shared familial contribution to individual differences in reward related brain activity in certain key reward processing regions.