Description: Neurostructural traces of early life adversities: A meta-analysis exploring age- and adversity-specific effects

This title appears in the Scientific Report : 2022

Neurostructural traces of early life adversities: A meta-analysis exploring age- and adversity-specific effects

Early life adversities (ELAs) are associated with an increased risk of psychopathology, with studies suggesting a relation to structural brain alterations. Given the recently growing evidence of ELA effects on brain structure, an updated summary is highly warranted. Therefore, anatomical likelihood...

Personal Name(s):	Pollok, Tania M. (Corresponding author)
	Kaiser, Anna / Kraaijenvanger, Eline J. / Monninger, Maximilian / Brandeis, Daniel / Banaschewski, Tobias / Eickhoff, Simon B. / Holz, Nathalie E. (Corresponding author)
Contributing Institute:	Gehirn & Verhalten; INM-7
Published in:	Neuroscience & biobehavioral reviews, 135 (2022) S. 104589
Imprint:	Amsterdam [u.a.] Elsevier Science 2022
PubMed ID:	35189164
DOI:	10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104589
Document Type:	Journal Article
Research Program:	Brain Dysfunction and Plasticity
	Publikationsportal JuSER

Please use the identifier: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104589 in citations.

Early life adversities (ELAs) are associated with an increased risk of psychopathology, with studies suggesting a relation to structural brain alterations. Given the recently growing evidence of ELA effects on brain structure, an updated summary is highly warranted. Therefore, anatomical likelihood estimation was used to conduct a coordinate-based meta-analysis of gray matter volume (GMV) alterations associated with ELAs, including sub-analyses for different age groups and maltreatment as specific ELA-type. The analyses uncovered a convergence of pooled ELA-effects on GMV in the right hippocampus and amygdala and the left inferior frontal gyrus, age-specific effects for the right amygdala and hippocampus in children and adolescents, and maltreatment-specific effects for the right perigenual anterior cingulate cortex in adults. These results reveal a possible underlying commonality in the impact of adversity and also point to specific age and maltreatment effects. They suggest neural markers of ELAs in regions involved in socio-emotional functioning and stress regulation, with the potential to be used as targets for interventions designed to buffer or reverse harmful ELA-effects.