ReviewChildhood adversity and neural development: Deprivation and threat as distinct dimensions of early experience☆
Section snippets
Distinguishing between deprivation and threat
The framework we propose here distinguishes between core dimensions of environmental experience that underlie different forms of childhood adversity and describes their distinct impacts on neural development. The central distinction we make is between experiences of deprivation and experiences of threat. We suggest that these dimensions of experience can be assessed across different forms of childhood adversity (e.g., physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence, institutionalization, neglect)
Predictions based on animal literature
One of the areas where the impact of experience on neural development has been most clearly documented is in the pruning of synaptic connections during development in the central nervous system. These principals were first examined in studies employing sensory deprivation (Wiesel and Hubel, 1965b). Studies of deprived or anomalous sensory input during development illustrated that one of the primary mechanisms through which early experience shapes neural structure and function is by pruning
Predictions based on animal literature
Evidence from animal and human studies demonstrates consistently that early exposure to threat is associated with long-term changes in neural circuits that underlie emotional learning. Based on this evidence, we argue that early threat exposure impacts the structure, function, and coupling of the hippocampus, amygdala, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). First, we predict that early threat exposure leads to changes in hippocampal morphology and function, including reduced dendritic
Recommendations for future research
The exposures that give rise to experiences of deprivation and threat co-occur at high rates in children and adolescents (Green et al., 2010, McLaughlin et al., 2012). This co-occurrence has generated many of the methodological and conceptual challenges in identifying dimensions of experience that influence specific aspects of neural development. We do not advocate that future research attempt to identify children who experience only one specific form of adversity, as that would surely result
Conclusion
We propose a novel conceptual framework for understanding the impact of childhood adversity on neural development and argue that the field must move beyond the prevailing approach of examining the impact of complex and co-occurring exposures on brain development to distilling those complex experiences into their core underlying dimensions. Two important dimensions that appear to have distinct effects on neural development are deprivation and threat. Existing evidence from human studies provides
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health (K01-MH092625 to McLaughlin and K01-MH092555 to Sheridan). The authors have no financial disclosures or conflicts of interest to report.
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This research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (K01-MH092526 and R01-MH103291 to McLaughlin and K01-MH092555 to Sheridan).
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Please note that these authors contributed equally to this work.