University of Pittsburgh.
Dev Psychopathol. 2017 Dec;29(5):1735-1747. doi: 10.1017/S0954579417001365.
Limbic white matter pathways link emotion, cognition, and behavior and are potentially malleable to the influences of traumatic events throughout development. However, the impact of interactions between childhood and later life trauma on limbic white matter pathways has yet to be examined. Here, we examined whether childhood maltreatment moderated the effect of combat exposure on diffusion tensor imaging measures within a sample of military veterans (N = 28). We examined five limbic tracts of interest: two components of the cingulum (cingulum, cingulate gyrus, and cingulum hippocampus [CGH]), the uncinate fasciculus, the fornix/stria terminalis, and the anterior limb of the internal capsule. Using effect sizes, clinically meaningful moderator effects were found only within the CGH. Greater combat exposure was associated with decreased CGH fractional anisotropy (overall structural integrity) and increased CGH radial diffusivity (perpendicular water diffusivity) among individuals with more severe childhood maltreatment. Our findings provide preliminary evidence of the moderating effect of childhood maltreatment on the relationship between combat exposure and CGH structural integrity. These differences in CGH structural integrity could have maladaptive implications for emotion and memory, as well as provide a potential mechanism by which childhood maltreatment induces vulnerability to later life trauma exposure.
边缘白质通路将情绪、认知和行为联系起来，并且在整个发育过程中可能会受到创伤事件的影响。然而，童年和后期生活创伤之间的相互作用对边缘白质通路的影响尚未被研究。在这里，我们研究了在一个退伍军人样本中（N=28），童年虐待是否调节了战斗暴露对扩散张量成像测量的影响。我们研究了五个感兴趣的边缘束：两条扣带束（扣带束、扣带回和扣带海马束[CGH]）、钩束、穹窿/终纹束和内囊前肢。使用效应大小，仅在 CGH 中发现了具有临床意义的调节作用。在童年虐待更严重的个体中，更多的战斗暴露与 CGH 分数各向异性（整体结构完整性）降低和 CGH 径向扩散率（垂直水扩散率）增加有关。我们的研究结果初步证明了童年虐待对战斗暴露与 CGH 结构完整性之间关系的调节作用。CGH 结构完整性的这些差异可能对情绪和记忆产生适应性不良的影响，并为童年虐待导致对后期生活创伤暴露的易感性提供了潜在的机制。
