Curium-LUMC, Academic Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Oegstgeest, the Netherlands.
Department of Psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Leiden, the Netherlands.
Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 24;10(1):3266. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-60256-3.
Exposure to childhood adverse events is associated with severe consequences for general health and structural and functional changes in the brain of its survivors. In order to unravel and in the end influence the pathway linking adversity and pathology, neuroimaging research is crucial. Up till now studies in minors are scarce and differ in type of adversity or methodology. Almost all studies report lower cortical thickness, but in a broad variety of regions. In this study we investigated cortical thickness measures and clinical data in a well circumscribed group of adolescents with PTSD related to childhood sexual abuse (CSA) (N = 21) and a healthy non-traumatised control group (N = 21). The ventromedial PFC (vmPFC), ACC, insula, and middle/superior temporal gyrus were chosen as ROI's due to their respective roles in emotion and information processing. No significant effect of group was found for cortical thickness, surface area or volume in any of the ROIs. This is in line with the results of research in adult women with sexual abuse related PTSD, suggesting that this may be specific to this group, independent of age. Recent research points to differential biological and pathological consequences of different types of childhood adversity.
童年期不良事件的暴露与幸存者的整体健康状况以及大脑结构和功能的变化密切相关。为了阐明并最终影响逆境与病理学之间的关联，神经影像学研究至关重要。迄今为止，未成年人的研究很少，而且在不良事件的类型或方法上存在差异。几乎所有的研究都报告了皮质厚度降低，但在广泛的区域内。在这项研究中，我们研究了一组患有创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）的青少年，这些青少年与儿童期性虐待（CSA）有关（N=21），并与健康的未受创伤的对照组（N=21）进行了比较。腹内侧前额叶皮质（vmPFC）、前扣带皮质（ACC）、岛叶和中/上颞回被选为 ROI，因为它们分别在情绪和信息处理方面发挥作用。在任何 ROI 中，组间的皮质厚度、表面积或体积均无显著差异。这与有性虐待相关 PTSD 的成年女性的研究结果一致，表明这可能是特定于该群体的，与年龄无关。最近的研究表明，不同类型的儿童期逆境会产生不同的生物学和病理学后果。
