News Release

Changes in brain networks may help youth adapt to childhood adversity

Reports new study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Elsevier

Philadelphia, PA, July 5, 2016 - A new study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging reports a neural signature of emotional adaptation that could help researchers understand how the brain adapts to childhood adversity and predict which kids may be vulnerable to developing later psychopathology.

Family stressors can take a toll on children and approximately two-thirds of youth will experience some form of childhood adversity by the age of 18. Research has primarily focused on how adversity at a young age can lead to mood disorders in adolescence, but most children exhibit resilience to adverse experiences. So senior author Dr. Marilyn Essex, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, and colleagues followed 132 kids from infancy to 18 years old to search for a neurobiological mechanism of emotional adaptation.

"The study shows us how experience changes the brain and how resilience reflects healthy emotion regulation," said Dr. Cameron Carter, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

The researchers chose to focus on common types of childhood adversity, such as negative parenting, parental conflict and financial stress, that occurred between infancy and 11 years of age. When the youth were 15 to 18 years old, the researchers studied their behavior to look for symptoms of anxiety and depression - they defined emotional adaptation as an absence of these symptoms. The researchers then studied brain responses during emotional processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging to look for associations between brain activity, childhood adversity, and emotional adaption.

When the adolescents viewed images that evoke negative emotions, those who experienced childhood adversity had a more reactive amygdala, a region of the brain involved in emotion processing. "Childhood adversity may sensitize the amygdala to negative emotional content, but this appears to be a normative, adaptive response that could allow better detection of threat for kids growing up in stressful environments," said first author of the study Dr. Ryan Herringa, Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The researchers also looked at a connection between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, an important circuit for regulating emotion. Childhood adversity was associated with a stronger connection between these brain regions, but was reduced in adolescents with high anxiety and depressive symptoms. Herringa explained this could mean that the ability of the brain to strengthen the connection between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex strengthens emotional adaptation.

"These findings point to a neural circuit that may be involved in emotional resilience and could be used as a potential treatment target for individuals suffering from anxiety and depression in the wake of adversity," Herringa said.

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Notes for editors

The article is "Enhanced Prefrontal-Amygdala Connectivity Following Childhood Adversity as a Protective Mechanism Against Internalizing in Adolescence," by Ryan J. Herringa, Cory A. Burghy, Diane E. Stodola, Michelle E. Fox, Richard J. Davidson, and Marilyn J. Essex (doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2016.03.003). It appears in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, volume 1, issue 4 (2016), published by Elsevier.

Copies of this paper are available to credentialed journalists upon request; please contact Rhiannon Bugno at +1 214 648 0880 or BPCNNI@utsouthwestern.edu. Journalists wishing to interview the authors may contact Ryan Herringa at herringa@wisc.edu.

The authors' affiliations, and disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article.

Cameron S. Carter, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology and Director of the Center for Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available here.

About Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging

Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging is an official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, whose purpose is to promote excellence in scientific research and education in fields that investigate the nature, causes, mechanisms and treatments of disorders of thought, emotion, or behavior. In accord with this mission, this peer-reviewed, rapid-publication, international journal focuses on studies using the tools and constructs of cognitive neuroscience, including the full range of non-invasive neuroimaging and human extra- and intracranial physiological recording methodologies. It publishes both basic and clinical studies, including those that incorporate genetic data, pharmacological challenges, and computational modeling approaches.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of information solutions that enhance the performance of science, health, and technology professionals, empowering them to make better decisions, deliver better care, and sometimes make groundbreaking discoveries that advance the boundaries of knowledge and human progress. Elsevier provides web-based, digital solutions -- among them ScienceDirect, Scopus, Elsevier Research Intelligence and ClinicalKey -- and publishes over 2,500 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and more than 35,000 book titles, including a number of iconic reference works. Elsevier is part of RELX Group, a world-leading provider of information and analytics for professional and business customers across industries. http://www.elsevier.com

Media contact

Rhiannon Bugno
Editorial Office, Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging
+1 214 648 0880
bpcnni@uthsouthwestern.edu


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