Lim Lena, Shafritz Keith M
Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
Institute for Human Development and Potential, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A∗STAR), Singapore.
Biol Psychiatry Glob Open Sci. 2025 Mar 27;5(4):100497. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsgos.2025.100497. eCollection 2025 Jul.
Early-life interpersonal stress, particularly childhood maltreatment (CM), is associated with neurobiological abnormalities and atypical emotion regulation. However, few studies have investigated the neural effects of peer victimization (PV). We examined neural alterations in emotional and nonemotional response inhibition in carefully matched healthy CM and PV groups.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were collected from 113 age- and sex-matched nonclinical/community youths (38 CM, 39 PV, and 36 control) during an emotional (fearful/happy) and nonemotional (letter) Go/NoGo task.
There were no significant group differences in behavioral performance. However, during fearful face inhibition, the CM group exhibited hyperactivation compared with the PV group in a cluster comprising the bilateral calcarine, cuneus, and lingual gyri, which was related to higher parental antipathy in the CM group. Hyperactivation also occurred in limbic-striatal, middle temporal, and cerebellar regions, although at a more liberal threshold. Additionally, there was a trend of PV-specific underactivation in the left middle temporal gyrus during happy inhibition. Despite no significant group differences in nonemotional response inhibition, both the CM and PV groups exhibited greater activation than the control group in default mode network regions during the cognitively low-load LetterGo condition.
These findings suggest that early-life interpersonal stress is associated with atypical neural activation during emotionally driven decision making but not during nonemotional response inhibition, underscoring the importance of examining both "hot" and "cold" decision-making processes. The atypical activation of key emotion-visual processing regions may be a potential mechanism to cope with aversive experiences and may reflect the brain's attempt to facilitate emotional inhibitory control, particularly in resilient maltreated youths.
早年的人际压力，尤其是童年期虐待（CM），与神经生物学异常和非典型情绪调节有关。然而，很少有研究调查同伴受害（PV）的神经影响。我们在精心匹配的健康CM组和PV组中研究了情绪和非情绪反应抑制的神经改变。
在情绪（恐惧/快乐）和非情绪（字母）Go/NoGo任务期间，从113名年龄和性别匹配的非临床/社区青年（38名CM组、39名PV组和36名对照组）收集功能磁共振成像数据。
行为表现上没有显著的组间差异。然而，在恐惧面孔抑制期间，CM组与PV组相比，在包括双侧距状回、楔叶和舌回的一个簇中表现出过度激活，这与CM组中较高的父母反感有关。在边缘纹状体、颞中回和小脑区域也出现了过度激活，尽管阈值更为宽松。此外，在快乐抑制期间，左颞中回存在PV特异性低激活的趋势。尽管在非情绪反应抑制方面没有显著的组间差异，但在认知低负荷字母Go条件下，CM组和PV组在默认模式网络区域的激活均高于对照组。
这些发现表明，早年人际压力与情绪驱动决策过程中的非典型神经激活有关，但与非情绪反应抑制无关，强调了检查“热”和“冷”决策过程的重要性。关键情绪视觉处理区域的非典型激活可能是应对厌恶经历的潜在机制，可能反映了大脑促进情绪抑制控制的尝试，特别是在有复原力的受虐待青年中。
