Childhood Adversity and Neural Development: A Systematic Review
Year: 2019
Type: review
Study design: Systematic Review
Abstract: An extensive literature on childhood adversity and neurodevelopment has emerged over the past decade. We evaluate two conceptual models of adversity and neurodevelopment-the dimensional model of adversity and stress acceleration model-in a systematic review of 109 studies using MRI-based measures of neural structure and function in children and adolescents. Consistent with the dimensional model, children exposed to threat had reduced amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and hippocampal volume and heightened amygdala activation to threat in a majority of studies; these patterns were not observed consistently in children exposed to deprivation. In contrast, reduced volume and altered function in frontoparietal regions were observed consistently in children exposed to deprivation but not children exposed to threat. Evidence for accelerated development in amygdala-mPFC circuits was limited but emerged in other metrics of neurodevelopment. Progress in charting neurodevelopmental consequences of adversity requires larger samples, longitudinal designs, and more precise assessments of adversity.
Institutions: Harvard University, University of Pittsburgh
Language: English
Topic: Child Abuse and Trauma
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G1356784645, Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms Underlying Stress Vulnerability during Adolescence, Child Trauma and the Development of Neural Systems Underlying Emotion Regulation, Deprivation and Threat: Dimensions of Early Experience and Neural Development, G885401306, Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms Underlying Stress Vulnerability during Adolescence
OpenAlex ID: W2996407267