An intergenerational family study on the impact of experienced and perpetrated child maltreatment on neural face processing

Intergenerational transmission of childhood maltreatment and offspring behavioral adjustment problems and competence

BACKGROUND

Previous studies have consistently highlighted that exposure to childhood maltreatment adversely affects the developmental domains of subsequent generations. Little, however, is known about the relationship between maternal childhood maltreatment history and adolescent development, as well as the mediator role of offspring childhood maltreatment.

OBJECTIVE

The current study attempts to investigate the mediating role of offspring childhood maltreatment in the relationship between maternal childhood maltreatment history and offspring behavioral adjustment problems and competence.

METHODS

Participants were 1102 adolescents aged 10-15 years (Mage = 12.14, SD = 1.22) and their mothers (Mage = 39.40, SD = 5.31). Participating adolescents filled out self-report instruments assessing their childhood maltreatment by their mothers, self-esteem, academic performance, loneliness, and prosocial and aggressive behaviors between October 2018 and May 2019. In addition, we collected data from mothers on their childhood maltreatment history.

RESULTS

We analyzed the data through a structural equation model. The findings revealed insignificant direct effects of maternal childhood maltreatment history on offspring behavioral adjustment problems and competence. Yet, indirect effects demonstrated that offspring maltreatment by mothers mediated the relationship between maternal childhood maltreatment history and offspring behavioral adjustment problems and competence. Maternal childhood maltreatment history was significantly associated with offspring maltreatment (β = 0.30; p < .001), which in turn was linked to a higher level of behavioral adjustment problems (β = 0.40; p < .001) and a lower level of competence (β = -0.71; p < .001).

CONCLUSION

The research findings extend our understanding of the relationship between maternal childhood maltreatment history and offspring behavioral adjustment problems and competence, identifying the mediating role of offspring maltreatment.

Neural differentiation of emotional faces as a function of interpersonal violence among adolescent girls

Interpersonal violence (IV) is associated with altered neural threat processing and risk for psychiatric disorder. Representational similarity analysis (RSA) is a multivariate approach examining the extent to which differences between stimuli correspond to differences in multivoxel activation patterns to these stimuli within each ROI. Using RSA, we examine overlap in neural patterns between threat and neutral faces in youth with IV. Participants were female adolescents aged 11-17 who had a history of IV exposure (n = 77) or no history of IV, psychiatric diagnoses, nor psychiatric medications (n = 37). Participants completed a facial emotion processing task during fMRI. Linear mixed models indicated that increasing hippocampal differentiation of fear and neutral faces was associated with increasing IV severity. Increased neural differentiation of these facial stimuli in the left and right hippocampus was associated with increasing physical abuse severity. Increased differentiation by the dACC correlated with increasing physical assault severity. RSA for most ROIs were not significantly associated with univariate activity, except for a positive association between amygdala RSA and activity to fear faces. Differences in statistically significant ROIs for physical assault and physical abuse may highlight distinct effects of trauma type on encoding of threat vs. neutral faces. Null associations between RSA and univariate activation in most ROIs suggest unique contributions of RSA for understanding IV compared to traditional activation. Implications include understanding mechanisms of risk in IV and trauma-specific treatment selection. Future work should replicate these findings in longitudinal studies and identify sensitive periods for neural alterations in RSA.

The Role of Psychopathology and Emotion Regulation in the Intergenerational Transmission of Childhood Abuse: A Family Study

Previous studies have shown that parents with a history of childhood abuse are at increased risk of perpetrating child abuse. To break the cycle of childhood abuse we need to better understand the mechanisms that play a role. In a cross-sectional extended family design including three generations (N = 250, 59% female), we examined the possible mediating role of parental psychopathology and emotion regulation in the association between a history of childhood abuse and perpetrating child abuse. Parents' own history of childhood abuse was associated with perpetrating abuse toward their children, and externalizing (but not internalizing) problems partially mediated this association statistically. Implicit and explicit emotion regulation were not associated with experienced or perpetrated abuse. Findings did not differ across fathers and mothers. Findings underline the importance of (early) treatment of externalizing problems in parents with a history of childhood abuse, to possibly prevent the transmission of child abuse.

The influence of childhood emotional neglect on emotional face processing in young adults

Childhood emotional neglect (CEN) refers to a failure to meet the basic emotional needs of a child, which can seriously impact interpersonal communication and psychological health in young adults. Emotional face processing is critical in interpersonal communication; however, whether CEN affects this processing in young adults has not been investigated. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore the effects of CEN on emotional face processing in young adults. Using the Child Trauma Questionnaire, an online survey was conducted with 5010 students from four universities in Tianjin, China. After online interviews and diagnosis by professional doctors, we obtained 20 participants with CEN (CEN group) and 20 without CEN (control group). None of the participants had any mental diseases. A 2 × 4 mixed design was used to investigate the differences in accuracy and response time when identifying the valence of the emotional faces. Compared to the control group, the CEN group identified the valence of all emotional faces more slowly, but there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of accuracy. CEN caused delayed emotional face processing in young adults, which may be related to unresponsive, unavailable, and limited emotional interaction patterns between parents and their children.

Cortical thickness and curvature abnormalities in patients with major depressive disorder with childhood maltreatment: Neural markers of vulnerability?

BACKGROUND

Childhood maltreatment has been related to various disadvantageous lifetime outcomes. However, the brain structural alterations that occur in major depressive disorder (MDD) patients with childhood maltreatment are incompletely investigated.

METHODS

We extensively explored the cortical abnormalities including cortical volume, surface area, thickness, sulcal depth, and curvature in maltreated MDD patients. Twoway ANOVA was performed to distinguish the effects of childhood maltreatment and depression on structural abnormalities. Partial correlation analysis was performed to explore the relationship between childhood maltreatment and cortical abnormalities. Moreover, we plotted the receiver operating characteristic curve to examine whether the observed cortical abnormalities could be used as neuro biomarkers to identify maltreated MDD patients.

RESULTS

We reach the following findings: (i) relative to MDD without childhood maltreatment, MDD patients with childhood maltreatment existed increased cortical curvature in inferior frontal gyrus; (ii) compared to HC without childhood maltreatment, decreased cortical thickness was observed in anterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex in MDD patients with childhood maltreatment; (iii) we confirmed the inseparable relationship between cortical curvature alterations in inferior frontal gyrus as well as childhood maltreatment; (iv) cortical curvature abnormality in inferior frontal gyrus could be applied as neural biomarker for clinical identification of MDD patients with childhood maltreatment.

CONCLUSIONS

Childhood maltreatment have a significant effects on cortical thickness and curvature abnormalities involved in inferior frontal gyrus, anterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex, constituting the vulnerability to depression.

Social Functioning in Individuals Affected by Childhood Maltreatment: Establishing a Research Agenda to Inform Interventions

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is linked to impairments in various domains of social functioning. Here, we argue that it is critical to identify factors that underlie impaired social functioning as well as processes that mediate the beneficial health effects of positive relationships in individuals exposed to CM. Key research recommendations are presented, focusing on: (1) identifying attachment-related alterations in specific inter- and intrapersonal processes (e.g., regulation of closeness and distance) that underlie problems in broader domains of social functioning (e.g., lack of perceived social support) in individuals affected by CM; (2) identifying internal (e.g., current emotional state) and external situational factors (e.g., cultural factors, presence of close others) that modulate alterations in specific social processes; and (3) identifying mechanisms that explain the positive health effects of intact social functioning. Methodological recommendations include: (1) assessing social processes through interactive and (close to) real-life assessments inside and outside the laboratory; (2) adopting an interdisciplinary, lifespan perspective to assess social processes, using multi-method assessments; (3) establishing global research collaborations to account for cultural influences on social processes and enable replications across laboratories and countries. The proposed line of research will contribute to globally develop and refine interventions that prevent CM and further positive relationships, which - likely through buffering the effects of chronic stress and corresponding allostatic load - foster resilience and improve mental and physical health, thereby reducing personal suffering and the societal and economic costs of CM and its consequences. Interventions targeting euthymia and psychological well-being are promising therapeutic concepts in this context.

Early Adversity and Emotion Processing From Faces: A Meta-analysis on Behavioral and Neurophysiological Responses

BACKGROUND

Although the link between early adversity (EA) and later-life psychiatric disorders is well established, it has yet to be elucidated whether EA is related to distortions in the processing of different facial expressions. We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate whether exposure to EA relates to distortions in responses to different facial emotions at three levels: 1) event-related potentials of the P100 and N170, 2) amygdala functional magnetic resonance imaging responses, and 3) accuracy rate or reaction time in behavioral data.

METHODS

The systematic literature search (PubMed and Web of Science) up to April 2020 resulted in 29 behavioral studies (n = 8555), 32 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (n = 2771), and 3 electroencephalography studies (n = 197) for random-effect meta-analyses.

RESULTS

EA was related to heightened bilateral amygdala reactivity to sad faces (but not other facial emotions). Exposure to EA was related to faster reaction time but a normal accuracy rate in response to angry and sad faces. In response to fearful and happy faces, EA was related to a lower accuracy rate only in individuals with recent EA exposure. This effect was more pronounced in individuals with exposure to EA before (vs. after) the age of 3 years. These findings were independent of psychiatric diagnoses. Because of the low number of eligible electroencephalography studies, no conclusions could be reached regarding the effect of EA on the event-related potentials.

CONCLUSIONS

EA relates to alterations in behavioral and neurophysiological processing of facial emotions. Our study stresses the importance of assessing age at exposure and time since EA because these factors mediate some EA-related perturbations.