Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London London, UK.
Front Psychiatry. 2011 Jul 28;2:48. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2011.00048. eCollection 2011.
Childhood maltreatment represents a significant risk factor for psychopathology. Recent research has begun to examine both the functional and structural neurobiological correlates of adverse care-giving experiences, including maltreatment, and how these might impact on a child's psychological and emotional development. The relationship between such experiences and risk for psychopathology has been shown to vary as a function of genetic factors. In this review we begin by providing a brief overview of neuroendocrine findings, which indicate an association between maltreatment and atypical development of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis stress response, which may predispose to psychiatric vulnerability in adulthood. We then selectively review the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies that have investigated possible structural and functional brain differences in children and adults who have experienced childhood maltreatment. Differences in the corpus callosum identified by structural MRI have now been reliably reported in children who have experienced abuse, while differences in the hippocampus have been reported in adults with childhood histories of maltreatment. In addition, there is preliminary evidence from functional MRI studies of adults who have experienced childhood maltreatment of amygdala hyperactivity and atypical activation of frontal regions. These functional differences can be partly understood in the context of the information biases observed in event-related potential and behavioral studies of physically abused children. Finally we consider research that has indicated that the effect of environmental adversity may be moderated by genotype, reviewing pertinent studies pointing to gene by environment interactions. We conclude by exploring the extent to which the growing evidence base in relation to neurobiological and genetic research may be relevant to clinical practice and intervention.
儿童虐待是精神病理学的一个重要风险因素。最近的研究开始检查不良养育经历（包括虐待）的功能和结构神经生物学相关性，以及这些因素如何影响儿童的心理和情感发展。这些经历与精神病理学风险之间的关系已被证明因遗传因素而异。在这篇综述中，我们首先简要概述了神经内分泌学的发现，这些发现表明虐待与下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺轴应激反应的非典型发育之间存在关联，这可能使成年人易患精神疾病。然后，我们选择性地回顾了磁共振成像（MRI）研究，这些研究调查了经历过儿童虐待的儿童和成年人的可能的结构和功能脑差异。结构 MRI 鉴定的胼胝体差异现已在经历过虐待的儿童中得到可靠报道，而海马体差异则在有儿童期虐待史的成年人中得到报道。此外，对经历过儿童期虐待的成年人的功能性 MRI 研究初步表明杏仁核过度活跃和额区激活异常。在对遭受身体虐待的儿童进行事件相关电位和行为研究中观察到的信息偏差的背景下，可以部分理解这些功能差异。最后，我们考虑了表明环境逆境的影响可能受基因型调节的研究，回顾了指向基因与环境相互作用的相关研究。我们最后探讨了与神经生物学和遗传学研究相关的越来越多的证据基础在多大程度上与临床实践和干预有关。
