Taking on Cumulative Stress Models: Neuroimaging Studies from Dimensional/ Interpersonal Neurodevelopmental Processing Perspectives on Adversity

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Traditional cumulative stress models claim that the quantity rather than the quality of adverse childhood experiences exerts the predominant influence on development (Evans et al., 2013). Conversely, recent theories suggest that threat (i.e., experiences that pose a risk to one’s physical integrity) and deprivation (i.e., absence of expected environmental input) as well as the socioemotional context during/ after adversity (i.e., experiences of social thinning and stress generation vs. co-regulation) incur distinct neurodevelopmental pathways (McCrory et al., 2022; Sheridan & McLaughlin, 2020; White et al., 2020). This symposium will draw on functional and structural MRI data from children and adolescents exposed to adversity to extend our insights into the roles of cognitive control, social support, and attachment representations following threat, deprivation and maltreatment. Using a go/no-go task in children aged 4–8 years, Paper 1 suggests that deprivation is associated with greater recruitment of canonical cognitive control regions in the prefrontal cortex and attentional resources for successful response inhibition. Paper 2 demonstrates that social support coincides with greater hippocampal volume for children with lower, but not higher exposure to neglect, suggesting that social buffering may be impeded by exceedingly high deprivation levels. Paper 3 employs a social exclusion paradigm to show that negative parent representations mediate the impact of emotional maltreatment on neural networks subserving mental state processing and cognitive control, in line with a hyper-vigilant response to interpersonal stress. The discussant will compare and contrast implications of these findings for cumulative stress, dimensional and interpersonal neurodevelopmental processing approaches to adversity.

Sub Unit

• Developmental Psychopathology

Chair

• Lars Otto White, Leipzig University

Discussant

• Margaret A. Sheridan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Individual Presentations

• Associations Between Cognitive Deprivation and Neural Activation During Cognitive Control in Early Childhood: A FMRI Study - Presenting Author: Lucy Lurie, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Amanda Mitchell, Columbia University; Maresa A. Tate, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Summer Motton, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Celina Meyer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Katie McLaughlin, Harvard University; Margaret A. Sheridan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

• Association of Social Support with Hippocampal Volume Depends on Maltreatment Subtype and Exposure Level - Presenting Author: Charlotte Catharina Schulz, Leipzig University; Lara Puhlmann, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences; Lisa Folkens, Leipzig University; Pascal Vrtička, University of Essex; Lars Otto White, Leipzig University

• Negative Parent Representations Mediate Effects of Emotional Maltreatment on Neural Responses to Social Exclusion - Presenting Author: Lars Otto White, Leipzig University; Charlotte Catharina Schulz, Leipzig University; Kai Von Klitzing, Uniklinikum Leipzig; Pascal Vrtička, University of Essex