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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2023.02.16.528877

Interpersonal early adversity demonstrates dissimilarity from early socioeconomic disadvantage in the course of human brain development: A meta-analysis

Vannucci, A.·Fields, A.·Hansen, E.·Katz, A.·Kerwin, J.·Tachida, A.·Martin, N.·Tottenham, N.
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Abstract

It has been established that early-life adversity impacts brain development, but the role of development itself has largely been ignored. We take a developmentally-sensitive approach to examine the neurodevelopmental sequelae of early adversity in a preregistered meta-analysis of 27,234 youth (birth to 18-years-old), providing the largest group of adversity-exposed youth to date. Findings demonstrate that early-life adversity does not have an ontogenetically uniform impact on brain volumes, but instead exhibits age-, experience-, and region-specific associations. Relative to non-exposed comparisons, interpersonal early adversity (e.g., family-based maltreatment) was associated with initially larger volumes in frontolimbic regions until ~10-years-old, after which these exposures were linked to increasingly smaller volumes. By contrast, socioeconomic disadvantage (e.g., poverty) was associated with smaller volumes in temporal-limbic regions in childhood, which were attenuated at older ages. These findings advance ongoing debates regarding why, when, and how early-life adversity shapes later neural outcomes.

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Vannucci, A., Fields, A., Hansen, E., Katz, A., Kerwin, J., Tachida, A., Martin, N., Tottenham, N.. 2023-02-18. Interpersonal early adversity demonstrates dissimilarity from early socioeconomic disadvantage in the course of human brain development: A meta-analysis. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.02.16.528877

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