MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Dev Sci. 2024 Jul;27(4):e13490. doi: 10.1111/desc.13490. Epub 2024 Mar 17.
The widely acknowledged detrimental impact of early adversity on child development has driven efforts to understand the underlying mechanisms that may mediate these effects within the developing brain. Recent efforts have begun to move beyond associating adversity with the morphology of individual brain regions towards determining if and how adversity might shape their interconnectivity. However, whether adversity effects a global shift in the organisation of whole-brain networks remains unclear. In this study, we assessed this possibility using parental questionnaire and diffusion imaging data from The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC, N = 913), a prospective longitudinal study spanning more than 20 years. We tested whether a wide range of adversities-including experiences of abuse, domestic violence, physical and emotional cruelty, poverty, neglect, and parental separation-measured by questionnaire within the first seven years of life were significantly associated with the tractography-derived connectome in young adulthood. We tested this across multiple measures of organisation and using a computational model that simulated the wiring economy of the brain. We found no significant relationships between early exposure to any form of adversity and the global organisation of the structural connectome in young adulthood. We did detect local differences in the medial prefrontal cortex, as well as an association between weaker brain wiring constraints and greater externalising behaviour in adolescence. Our results indicate that further efforts are necessary to delimit the magnitude and functional implications of adversity-related differences in connectomic organization. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Diverse prospective measures of the early-life environment do not predict the organisation of the DTI tractography-derived connectome in young adulthood Wiring economy of the connectome is weakly associated with externalising in adolescence, but not internalising or cognitive ability Further work is needed to establish the scope and significance of global adversity-related differences in the structural connectome.
早期逆境对儿童发展的广泛公认的不利影响促使人们努力了解在发育中的大脑中可能介导这些影响的潜在机制。最近的努力已经开始超越将逆境与个别脑区的形态联系起来，转向确定逆境是否以及如何塑造它们的连通性。然而，逆境是否会导致整个大脑网络的组织发生全局转变仍不清楚。在这项研究中，我们使用了来自阿冯纵向父母与子女研究（ALSPAC，N=913）的父母问卷和扩散成像数据来评估这种可能性，这是一项跨越 20 多年的前瞻性纵向研究。我们测试了在生命的头七年通过问卷测量的广泛逆境（包括虐待、家庭暴力、身体和情感虐待、贫困、忽视和父母分离）是否与年轻人的大脑连通性的轨迹测量结果显著相关。我们使用了多种组织测量方法和计算模型来测试这一点，该模型模拟了大脑的布线经济。我们发现，在年轻人中，早期接触任何形式的逆境与结构连通性的整体组织之间没有显著的关系。我们确实在中前额叶皮层中检测到了局部差异，以及在青春期大脑布线限制较弱与外化行为之间的关联。我们的结果表明，有必要进一步努力来限定与连接组织中逆境相关差异的幅度和功能意义。研究亮点：早期环境的多种前瞻性测量指标不能预测年轻人的 DTI 轨迹测量连通性的组织连通性的布线经济与青春期的外化行为弱相关，但与内化行为或认知能力无关需要进一步的工作来确定结构连通性中与全局逆境相关的差异的范围和意义。
