1-023 - Childhood adversity and fear circuit development: Pathways to risk and resilience

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Childhood adversity is a major risk factor for the development of affective disorders such as PTSD, anxiety, and depression. However, little remains known about how adversity may bias the developing brain’s emotion processing and regulatory circuits in ways that may lead to mental illness, or in ways which lead to emotional resilience. Identifying these neural mechanisms can pave the way to rationale targeting of early interventions in at-risk youth, and treating stress-related psychopathology more effectively during childhood. With these aims in mind, this symposium brings together a group of researchers examining the neural substrates of childhood adversity and trauma in community and clinical samples. The speakers will focus on how childhood adversity alters the structural and functional development of neural circuits underlying the regulation of fear and anxiety, and how such changes contribute to anxiety disorders and PTSD. This series of four presentations will examine (1) cortical thickness in abused vs. non-abused adolescents and its relationship to internalizing and externalizing symptoms, (2) longitudinal structural brain development in youth with PTSD compared to non-traumatized healthy youth, (3) the effects of childhood trauma on prefrontal-amygdala function during cognitive-emotional conflict in a community sample of youth, and (4) the effects of childhood abuse on fronto-limbic function during fear conditioning in a large community sample of youth. Together, these talks aim to elucidate the effects of childhood trauma on the development and function of emotion regulatory circuits, and may point to potential targets for intervention in at risk youth following trauma.

Sub Unit

• Biology and Neuroscience

Chair

• Ryan John Herringa, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health

Individual Presentations

• Childhood abuse and neural structure in adolescence - Presenting Author: Andrea Gold, NIMH; Margaret A. Sheridan, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Matthew Peverill, University of Washington; Daniel S. Busso, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Hilary K. Lambert, University of Washington; Sonia Alves, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Daniel Pine, 1. Section on Development and Affective Neuroscience, NIMH; Katie McLaughlin, University of Washington

• Developmental grey matter changes in pediatric posttraumatic stress disorder: A longitudinal VBM study - Presenting Author: Sara Heyn, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Christy Olson, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health; Taylor Jay Keding, University of Wisconsin-Madison Neuroscience Training Program; Ryan John Herringa, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health

• Impact of trauma exposure on inhibition-related activation in the developing brain - Presenting Author: Tanja Jovanovic, Emory University; Jennifer Stevens, Emory University; Ye Ji Kim, Emory University; Timothy D. Ely, Emory University; Sanne van Rooij, Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

• Enhanced salience of threat following trauma exposure in children - Presenting Author: Katie McLaughlin, University of Washington; Margaret A. Sheridan, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill