University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Psychology, Birmingham, AL, USA.
RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, USA.
Cortex. 2021 Apr;137:108-123. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.12.020. Epub 2021 Jan 25.
Childhood physical and sexual abuse are stressful experiences that may alter the emotional response to future stressors. Stress-related emotional function is supported by brain regions that include the prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus, and amygdala. The present study investigated whether childhood physical and sexual abuse are associated with stress-elicited brain activity in young adulthood.
Participants (N = 300; M = 20.0; 151 female) completed a psychosocial stress task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Measures of physical and sexual abuse were included in a linear mixed effects model to estimate the unique relationship each type of childhood abuse had with stress-elicited brain activity.
Stress-elicited dorsolateral PFC, ventromedial PFC, and hippocampal activity decreased as the frequency of childhood sexual abuse increased. There were no regions in which stress-elicited activation varied with physical abuse.
The present findings suggest there is a unique relationship between childhood sexual abuse and the stress-elicited PFC and hippocampal activity of young adults that is not observed following childhood physical abuse.
These findings may have important implications for understanding the mechanisms by which childhood sexual abuse impacts the development of future psychopathology.
童年期身体虐待和性虐待是应激体验，可能改变对未来应激源的情绪反应。与应激相关的情绪功能由包括前额叶皮层（PFC）、海马体和杏仁核在内的脑区支持。本研究调查了童年期身体虐待和性虐待是否与成年早期的应激诱发的大脑活动有关。
参与者（N=300；M=20.0；151 名女性）在功能磁共振成像（fMRI）期间完成了一项心理社会应激任务。身体和性虐待的测量被纳入线性混合效应模型，以估计每种类型的儿童虐待与应激诱发的大脑活动的独特关系。
随着童年期性虐待频率的增加，应激诱发的背外侧 PFC、腹内侧 PFC 和海马体活动减少。在身体虐待中，没有应激诱发激活随其变化的区域。
本研究结果表明，童年期性虐待与年轻成年人应激诱发的 PFC 和海马体活动之间存在独特的关系，而这种关系在童年期身体虐待后并未观察到。
这些发现可能对理解童年期性虐待如何影响未来精神病理学的发展具有重要意义。
