To investigate the impact of childhood stress on the adolescent brain, the researchers studied 37 children (22 female; 15 male) who participated in the Nijmegen Longitudinal Study on Child and Infant Development. Researchers characterized effects of early-life (age 0 to 5) and ongoing stressors (age 14 to 17) on longitudinal changes (age 14 to 17) in grey matter volume (GMV) of healthy adolescent. To measure brain maturation, they tracked reductions in the GMV. Both timing and stressor type were related to differential GMV changes. Early-life stress profoundly affected changes in brain structure between ages 14 and 17. Adolescents who had experienced more negative personal events prior to age 5 (eg, illness or divorce) showed larger reductions in GMV in subcortical structures, such as the putamen, insula, caudate, and thalamus, as well as cortical areas spanning the prefrontal, frontal, posterior cingulate, and temporal cortex. More personal early-life stressful events were associated with larger developmental reductions in GMV over anterior prefrontal cortex, amygdala and other subcortical regions; whereas ongoing stress from the adolescents’ social environment was related to smaller reductions over the orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex. By contrast, GMV changes that were of a similar direction but were of different types occurred in the amygdala, such as a larger number of negative personal early-life events was associated with a lack of growth in this region between ages 14 and 17.
Figure. In children who had experienced two or more stressful early life events, gray matter tended to decrease more dramatically during adolescence
The study findings suggest that early-life stress accelerates pubertal development, whereas an adverse adolescent social environment disturbs brain maturation with potential mental health implications. This includes delayed anterior cingulate maturation was associated with more antisocial traits which is a juvenile precursor of psychopathy.
Reference:
Tyborowska A, Volman I, Niermann HCM, et al. Early-life and pubertal stress differentially modulate grey matter development in human adolescents. Sci Rep. 2018;8(1):9201. Abstract
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