Aug 2026· Journal of neural transmission· 0 citations· 71 references
Medicine
TL;DR
Childhood trauma moderated the association between recent stress exposure and structural and functional brain measures in MDD, particularly within prefrontal regulatory regions, consistent with stress sensitization models and suggest that early adversity may contribute to heterogeneity in neural correlates of stress in depression.
Background Childhood adversity is linked to psychopathology risk and dysregulated stress reactivity; however, unified underlying neural mechanisms are unclear. A central visceral network, including the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), amygdala and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), is implicated in affective processes and proximally controls stress reactivity. We examined relationships among childhood adversity, stressor-evoked neural activity/connectivity and affective and cardiovascular outcomes. Methods Participants were adults (n=97, mean age=27.32, SD=4.02, 57 females) uniformly distributed across physical abuse severity. Childhood adversity was assessed by threat (abuse or traumatic events) and socioeconomic deprivation (SED). Participants performed an fMRI stress task with cardiovascular recordings. Linear/curvilinear regressions were performed with threat and deprivation together as predictors of stressor-evoked activity/connectivity. Neural variables showing significant adversity associations were examined as predictors of affective symptoms/diagnoses or cardiovascular responses. Results Threat and SED displayed opposing curvilinear relationships with stressor-evoked amygdala and sgACC activity, respectively: at low and high adversity, amygdala reactivity was greater, whereas sgACC reactivity was blunted. Greater SED was associated with weaker BNST-sgACC connectivity. Blunted amygdala reactivity and lower sgACC reactivity were associated with greater post-traumatic stress symptoms. Affective diagnoses peaked at near-zero BNST-sgACC connectivity. Greater amygdala reactivity was associated with blunted diastolic blood pressure reactivity and recovery. Conclusions The curvilinear relationships suggest adversity-related vulnerability thresholds. Blunted amygdala, lower sgACC reactivity and weaker BNST-sgACC connectivity may confer affective risk, whereas heightened amygdala reactivity may confer cardiovascular risk. Our findings support a central visceral network pathway by which childhood adversity may contribute to affective and cardiovascular health.
N. Kasibhatla, C.-W. Peng, H. Karim et al.· medRxiv· 0 citations
Background: Adolescent major depressive disorder (MDD) is heterogeneous, with diverse and frequently co-occurring psychopathological manifestations. Although family-related experiences, childhood trauma, rumination, and psychological resilience have each been linked to adolescent mental health, less is known about how they are interrelated and jointly associated with distinct psychopathological domains. This study examined these associations within an integrative framework. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 80 adolescents with MDD and 53 healthy controls. Family functioning, parenting, childhood trauma, rumination, psychological resilience, and four clinical domains, including affective distress, suicidal ideation, the non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) spectrum, and self-regulation difficulties, were assessed using validated instruments. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) examined their multivariate associations. Sensitivity analyses restricted to the MDD sample and covariate-adjusted regression models assessed the robustness of the findings. Results: The four clinical domains showed high reliability and acceptable discriminant validity. Family dysfunction was associated with maladaptive parenting and childhood trauma, and maladaptive parenting was associated with childhood trauma (beta = .383-.600; all p < .001). Childhood trauma was associated with greater rumination (beta = .625) and lower psychological resilience (beta = -.405; both p < .001). Rumination and psychological resilience showed opposing associations with all four domains (rumination: beta = .280-.559; resilience: beta = -.265 to -.399; all p <= .006). Family dysfunction, maladaptive parenting, and childhood trauma showed significant total indirect associations with each domain (all p < .001). The model explained 53%-85% of the variance across the four domains. The MDD-only analysis reproduced the principal associations observed in the combined sample and additionally showed direct associations between maladaptive parenting and all four clinical domains. Covariate-adjusted analyses retained all principal associations except the resilience-NSSI association. Conclusions: The findings support a multidimensional characterization of adolescent MDD comprising distinguishable yet interrelated domains of affective-psychosomatic distress, suicidal ideation, the NSSI spectrum, and self-regulation difficulties. The partly shared and partly distinct associations of these domains with family-related adversity, rumination, and psychological resilience support considering domain-level psychopathology alongside diagnostic status and global depression severity in research on adolescent MDD.
P. Wang, Y. Zhang, X. Wang et al.· medRxiv· 0 citations
It is hypothesized that individuals with greater childhood maltreatment severity, particularly severity of emotional abuse and neglect, will exhibit stronger DACS, reflecting greater temporal coupling between depression and anxiety symptoms, and whether childhood maltreatment severity and subtype predict stronger coupling and more persistent symptom trajectories.
Although evidence suggests that psychosocial stress is a risk factor for cognitive decline in aging adults, potential mechanisms for this association are not well understood. This cross-sectional study examined associations of two measures of self-reported psychosocial stress – including the perceived stress scale (PSS) and a stressful life events (SLE) questionnaire – with functional connectivity in four large-scale, non-overlapping brain networks derived from resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). Analyses included 426 late middle-aged and older participants from the Healthy Minds for Life study of the Precision Aging® Network (M (SD) age = 64.5 (7.8) years, 71% female, 33% from under-represented racial/ethnic groups). Higher SLE scores were associated with lower functional connectivity in the default mode, salience/ventral attention, and dorsal attention networks. Higher SLE scores were additionally associated with lower cognitive performance. Patterns of results were similar when individuals with possible cognitive impairment were excluded. These findings indicate that higher levels of psychosocial stress, particularly stressful life events, are associated with lower connectivity in several large-scale functional brain networks and suggest one mechanism by which everyday experiences may shape the aging brain.
G. Pfaff, E. Paitel, A. Soldan et al.· Cognitive, Affective, & Beha...· 0 citations
Sexual aggression, female sex, and older age were significantly associated with a PTSD diagnosis among psychiatric trauma survivors, underscoring the importance of incorporating trauma-informed care principles and systematic screening for sexual violence into mental health settings to improve diagnostic accuracy and optimize interventions for this population.
Laura Estefanía Mora Ortiz, Ilyamín Merlín García, Rebeca Robles García· Actas espanolas de psiquiatr...· 0 citations
ABSTRACT Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) occurs following potentially traumatic experiences, but not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD. Genetic factors play an important role in shaping how individuals respond to trauma, reflecting gene-environment interaction. An open and important question in PTSD genetics research is the extent to which gene-environment interactions vary across specific traumas. Objective: We aimed to compare gene-environment interaction effects across a broad range of self-reported potentially traumatic experiences across the lifespan. Method: We analysed existing data from two large UK cohorts: the UK Biobank and GLAD-EDGI-COPING (N = 144,702). PTSD symptoms were assessed using the six-item abbreviated PTSD Checklist. We examined eleven self-reported trauma exposures, including five childhood traumas and six adulthood traumas. We conducted gene-environment interaction analyses for each trauma at three levels of genetic specificity: polygenic risk scores, specific genes, and specific genetic variants. Results: Childhood traumas showed stronger associations with PTSD symptoms and greater gene-environment interactions than adulthood traumas on average. Childhood emotional and physical neglect also demonstrated greater gene-environment interactions than childhood abuse. Interaction patterns varied across genes and variants, with several leading PTSD-associated genes (e.g. ANAPC, FAM120A, SGCD) having particularly strong interactions with certain traumas. Several genes (DTX4, PSMD12, TYW3, ZNF660) demonstrated consistently stronger interactions across all childhood or all adulthood traumas. Differences in gene-environment interactions across traumas were not explained by variation in exposure rates, associations with PTSD symptoms, or gene-environment correlations. Conclusions: Our findings are consistent with differential gene-environment interactions on PTSD across potentially traumatic experiences, with those in childhood exhibiting the strongest interactions. To account for the moderating role of trauma type on genetic associations, genetic research on PTSD should incorporate detailed trauma exposure information, which may improve PTSD risk prediction and support more personalised prevention approaches.
Jacob Knyspel, S. Kakar, Anna C. Carnegie et al.· European Journal of Psychotr...· 0 citations
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