Armbruster-Genç Diana J N, Neil Louise, Valton Vincent, Phillips Harriet, Rankin Georgia, Sharp Molly, Rapley Jessica, Viding Essi, Roiser Jonathan P, McCrory Eamon
Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK.
Institute of Psychology, University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), Landau, Germany.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2025 Jun;66(6):846-856. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.14095. Epub 2024 Dec 12.
Atypical reward processing is implicated in a range of psychiatric disorders associated with childhood maltreatment and may represent a latent vulnerability mechanism. In this longitudinal study, we investigated the impact of maltreatment on behavioural and neural indices of reward learning in volatile environments and examined associations with future psychopathology assessed 18 months later.
Thirty-seven children and adolescents with documented histories of maltreatment (MT group) and a carefully matched group of 32 non-maltreated individuals (NMT group) aged 10-16 were presented with a probabilistic reinforcement learning task featuring a phase of stable and a phase of volatile reward contingencies. Brain activation and connectivity were assessed simultaneously using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Computational models were used to extract individual estimates of learning rates and temperature, and neural signals in prespecified regions of interest were analysed during volatile and stable environments. In regression analyses, behavioural measures and neural signals at baseline were used to predict psychological symptoms at follow-up.
The MT group showed lower behavioural exploration, which predicted decreased internalising symptoms at follow-up. The MT group had lower activation in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) during outcome delivery in volatile relative to stable contexts. OFC connectivity with an area in the mid-cingulate cortex was also lower during outcome processing, which predicted higher general psychopathology at follow-up.
These findings are consistent with the notion that low exploratory behaviour following childhood maltreatment is potentially a protective adaptation against internalising symptoms, while disrupted neural processing of reward learning in volatile environments may index latent vulnerability to mental illness.
非典型奖励处理与一系列与童年虐待相关的精神疾病有关，可能代表一种潜在的易感性机制。在这项纵向研究中，我们调查了虐待对不稳定环境中奖励学习的行为和神经指标的影响，并研究了与18个月后评估的未来精神病理学的关联。
37名有虐待史记录的儿童和青少年（MT组）以及32名年龄在10 - 16岁的精心匹配的非受虐个体（NMT组）参与了一项概率强化学习任务，该任务包括一个稳定奖励偶联阶段和一个不稳定奖励偶联阶段。同时使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）评估大脑激活和连通性。使用计算模型提取学习率和温度的个体估计值，并在不稳定和稳定环境中分析预先指定感兴趣区域的神经信号。在回归分析中，使用基线时的行为测量和神经信号来预测随访时的心理症状。
MT组表现出较低的行为探索性，这预测了随访时内化症状的减少。在不稳定环境中相对于稳定环境的结果传递过程中，MT组眶额皮质（OFC）的激活较低。在结果处理过程中，OFC与中扣带回皮质一个区域的连通性也较低，这预测了随访时较高的总体精神病理学水平。
这些发现与以下观点一致，即童年虐待后的低探索行为可能是对内化症状的一种保护性适应，而在不稳定环境中奖励学习的神经处理中断可能表明对精神疾病的潜在易感性。
