Abstract
Childhood maltreatment is associated with error hypersensitivity. We examined the effect of childhood abuse and abuse-by-gene (5-HTTLPR, MAOA) interaction on functional brain connectivity during error processing in medication/drug-free adolescents. Functional connectivity was compared, using generalized psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, between 22 age- and gender-matched medication-naïve and substance abuse-free adolescents exposed to severe childhood abuse and 27 healthy controls, while they performed an individually adjusted tracking stop-signal task, designed to elicit 50% inhibition failures. During inhibition failures, abused participants relative to healthy controls exhibited reduced connectivity between right and left putamen, bilateral caudate and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and between right supplementary motor area (SMA) and right inferior and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Abuse-related connectivity abnormalities were associated with longer abuse duration. No group differences in connectivity were observed for successful inhibition. The findings suggest that childhood abuse is associated with decreased functional connectivity in fronto-cingulo-striatal networks during error processing. Furthermore that the severity of connectivity abnormalities increases with abuse duration. Reduced connectivity of error detection networks in maltreated individuals may be linked to constant monitoring of errors in order to avoid mistakes which, in abusive contexts, are often associated with harsh punishment.
Highlights
Childhood maltreatment is, common in the UK, with 22% of 11–17 year olds reporting physical, emotional, sexual abuse or neglect by a caregiver in their lifetime (Radford et al, 2013)
Since lower IQ is associated with childhood maltreatment (De Bellis et al, 2009), artificially matching groups on IQ is inappropriate as it creates unrepresentative groups; either the abused group will have higher IQs than the abused population or the control group will have IQs below normative expectations (Dennis et al, 2009)
It is misguided to control for IQ differences by covarying IQ when groups are not randomly selected and the covariate is a pre-existing group difference as analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) would lead to potentially spurious results (Miller and Chapman, 2001; Dennis et al, 2009)
Summary
Common in the UK, with 22% of 11–17 year olds reporting physical, emotional, sexual abuse or neglect by a caregiver in their lifetime (Radford et al, 2013). Error Processing Networks in Child Abuse alterations in brain structure, function and connectivity (Teicher et al, 2003) and is associated with many adverse cognitive consequences such as low IQ and academic performance as well as impaired attention, inhibition, emotion and reward processing (Pechtel and Pizzagalli, 2011). Cognitive control and error monitoring deficits have been reported in maltreated (Mezzacappa et al, 2001; Deprince et al, 2009) and institutionalized children (Beckett et al, 2010; Pollak et al, 2010) and in adults who experienced childhood sexual abuse (Navalta et al, 2006). Substantial improvement in cognitive control and error monitoring occurs from childhood to early adulthood, and is underpinned by progressively increasing fronto-cingulo-striatal activation with increasing age during this developmental period (Rubia et al, 2007; Velanova et al, 2008; Rubia, 2013)
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