Grey Matter Volume and Thickness Abnormalities in Young People with a History of Severe Childhood Abuse

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Grey Matter Volume and Thickness Abnormalities in Young People with a History of Severe Childhood Abuse Lena Lim1*, Heledd Hart1, Mitul Mehta2, Andy Simmons2, Amada Worker2, Mirza Kah1 and Katya Rubia1 1 Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, United Kingdom 2 Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, Department of Neuroimaging, United Kingdom Background: Earlier studies on childhood abuse mostly recruited samples with psychiatric comorbidities, limiting the interpretation of the observed brain abnormalities. We investigated the associations between exposure to childhood abuse and structural abnormalities as well as explored abuse exposure x gene (5-HTTLPR and MAOA) interaction effects on structural abnormalities in medication-naïve, drug-free youth, controlling for psychiatric comorbidities by including a psychiatric control group. Methods: Cortical volume (CV), cortical thickness (CT) and surface area (SA) were measured in 22 age-and gender-matched youth exposed to childhood abuse, 19 psychiatric controls matched for psychiatric diagnoses and 27 healthy controls. Both region-of-interest (ROI) and whole-brain analyses were conducted. Results: For the ROI analysis, the childhood abuse group had smaller bilateral cerebellar CV and reduced CT in left insula and right lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), compared to healthy controls only. Furthermore, 5-HTTLPR and MAOA genotypes moderated the effects of abuse exposure on OFC and insula abnormalities, respectively, albeit at a trend-level. For the whole-brain analysis, the childhood abuse group, relative to healthy controls, showed significantly reduced CV in left precuneus, cuneus, lingual and superior parietal gyri, and increased CV in left inferior and middle temporal regions. They also showed reduced CT in left pre-/postcentral and paracentral regions relative to healthy controls only. Abnormalities in the precuneus, middle temporal and precentral regions were abuse-specific relative to psychiatric controls, at a more lenient uncorrected level. There were no significant group differences in SA. Finally, the reduced CV and CT clusters were furthermore associated with both higher abuse score and earlier onset of abuse. Conclusions: Childhood abuse is associated with structural abnormalities in orbitofrontal-limbic, cerebellar, parietal, temporal and sensory regions, which likely underlie the emotion, motivation and cognitive deficits in this population. The abnormalities were not observed in the psychiatric controls and specific relative to this group in more lenient analyses, suggesting that they may be abuse-specific. Acknowledgements This study, LL and HH were supported by the Reta Lila Weston Trust for Medical Research. LL was also supported by the National Medical Research Council. AS and KR were supported by the UK Department of Health via the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) for Mental Health at South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. Keywords: childhood maltreatment, Childhood trauma and adversity, brain structural abnormalities, Childhood physical abuse, 5-HTTLPR, MAOA-VNTR Conference: SAN2016 Meeting, Corfu, Greece, 6 Oct - 9 Oct, 2016. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation in SAN2016 Conference Topic: Posters Citation: Lim L, Hart H, Mehta M, Simmons A, Worker A, Kah M and Rubia K (2016). Grey Matter Volume and Thickness Abnormalities in Young People with a History of Severe Childhood Abuse. Conference Abstract: SAN2016 Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2016.220.00087 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 29 Jul 2016; Published Online: 01 Aug 2016. * Correspondence: Dr. Lena Lim, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, London, SW5 8AF, United Kingdom, lena.lim@kcl.ac.uk Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Lena Lim Heledd Hart Mitul Mehta Andy Simmons Amada Worker Mirza Kah Katya Rubia Google Lena Lim Heledd Hart Mitul Mehta Andy Simmons Amada Worker Mirza Kah Katya Rubia Google Scholar Lena Lim Heledd Hart Mitul Mehta Andy Simmons Amada Worker Mirza Kah Katya Rubia PubMed Lena Lim Heledd Hart Mitul Mehta Andy Simmons Amada Worker Mirza Kah Katya Rubia Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.