Childhood trauma 'embedded' in the brain

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-03-10 12:49

New Zealand; International

Credit: Vanessa Bumbeers/Unsplash

Childhood abuse, neglect, and family disruption may have long-term impacts on brain development, according to new research. An international team, including University of Otago scientists, analysed brain scans from almost 900 Kiwis participating in the Dunedin Study. Their results found that traumatic experiences in childhood were linked to widespread differences in brain structure in later life. The authors say this could explain why childhood trauma is linked to mental health issues in adulthood, but more research is needed to understand these links.

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Research Elsevier, Web page

Journal/
conference: Biological Psychiatry

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Otago, Duke University, US, King’s College London, UK, University of Oslo, Norway

Funder: This research was supported by National Institute of Aging grants R01AG032282 and R01AG049789, and UK Medical Research Council grant MR/P005918/1. Additional support was provided by the Jacobs Foundation. The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit was supported by the New Zealand Health Research Council and New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE). K.J.B. is supported by National Institute on Aging Training Grant T32-AG000029. A.R. is supported by grant F31ES029358 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. M.L.E. is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. NSF DGE-1644868.

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