Abstract
Childhood adversity is thought to undermine youth socioemotional development via altered neural function within regions that support emotion processing. These effects are hypothesized to be developmentally specific, with adversity in early childhood sculpting subcortical structures (e.g., amygdala) and adversity during adolescence impacting later-developing structures (e.g., prefrontal cortex; PFC). However, little work has tested these theories directly in humans. Using prospectively collected longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) (N = 4,144) and neuroimaging data from a subsample of families recruited in adolescence (N = 162), the current study investigated the trajectory of harsh parenting across childhood (i.e., ages 3 to 9) and how initial levels versus changes in harsh parenting across childhood were associated with corticolimbic activation and connectivity during socioemotional processing. Harsh parenting in early childhood (indexed by the intercept term from a linear growth curve model) was associated with less amygdala, but not PFC, reactivity to angry facial expressions. In contrast, change in harsh parenting across childhood (indexed by the slope term) was associated with less PFC, but not amygdala, activation to angry faces. Increases in, but not initial levels of, harsh parenting were also associated with stronger positive amygdala-PFC connectivity during angry face processing.
Highlights
Exposure to childhood adversity is associated with maladaptive developmental outcomes, including the emergence and persistence of psychopathology (Green et al, 2010; Lupien, McEwen, Gunnar, & Heim, 2009)
The current study examined how harsh parenting behaviors change across childhood in a large, population-based sample of sociodemographically-diverse families, and explored how harsh parenting in early childhood and changes in harsh parenting across childhood were associated with subsequent corticolimbic function during adolescence
Consistent with animal models and theory (Debiec & Sullivan, 2017; Lupien et al, 2009; Tottenham, 2015), we found that harsh parenting in early childhood was associated with less amygdala activation during socioemotional processing at age 15, whereas increases in harsh parenting from ages 3 to 9 years were associated with less activation in the dorsal ACC (dACC) at age 15
Summary
Exposure to childhood adversity is associated with maladaptive developmental outcomes, including the emergence and persistence of psychopathology (Green et al, 2010; Lupien, McEwen, Gunnar, & Heim, 2009). Individual differences in amygdala, mPFC, and ACC reactivity to fearful and angry facial expressions have been associated with dysregulated cortisol signaling (Henckens et al, 2016), internalizing (Etkin et al, 2011; Groenewold, Opmeer, de Jonge, Aleman, & Costafreda, 2013; Kim et al, 2011; Monk, 2008), and externalizing behaviors (Coccaro, McCloskey, Fitzgerald, & Phan, 2007; Hyde, Shaw, & Hariri, 2013; Marsh & Blair, 2008; Yang & Raine, 2009) – all outcomes that have been linked to adversity in childhood (Green et al, 2010; Loman & Gunnar, 2010). Amygdala–PFC connectivity has been associated with multiple forms of psychopathology that are marked by deficits in emotion processing, cross-sectionally (Hyde et al, 2013; Kim et al, 2011; Price & Drevets, 2010) and longitudinally (Gard et al, 2018; Waller et al, 2018)
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