Mismatch or allostatic load? Timing of life-adversity differentially shapes gray matter volume and anxious-temperament

TY - JOUR

T1 - Mismatch or allostatic load? Timing of life-adversity differentially shapes gray matter volume and anxious-temperament

AU - Kuhn, Manuel

AU - Scharfenort, Robert

AU - Schümann, Dirk

AU - Schiele, Miriam A

AU - Münsterkötter, Anna Luisa

AU - Deckert, Jürgen

AU - Domschke, Katharina

AU - Haaker, Jan

AU - Kalisch, Raffael

AU - Pauli, Paul

AU - Reif, Andreas

AU - Romanos, Marcel

AU - Zwanzger, Peter

AU - Lonsdorf, Tina B

N1 - © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press.

PY - 2016/4

Y1 - 2016/4

N2 - Traditionally, adversity was defined as the accumulation of environmental events (allostatic load). Recently however, a mismatch between the early and the later (adult) environment (mismatch) has been hypothesized to be critical for disease-development, a hypothesis that has not yet been tested explicitly in humans.We explored the impact of timing of life adversity (childhood and past year) on anxiety and depression levels (N=833) and brain morphology (N= 129).Both remote (childhood) and proximal (recent) adversities were differentially mirrored in morphometric changes in areas critically involved in emotional processing (i.e. amygdala/hippocampus, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex respectively). The effect of adversity on affect acted in an additive way with no evidence for interactions (mismatch). Structural equation modelling demonstrated a direct effect of adversity on morphometric estimates and anxiety/depression without evidence of brain morphology functioning as a mediator.Our results highlight that adversity manifests as pronounced changes in brain morphometric and affective temperament even though these seem to represent distinct mechanistic pathways. A major goal of future studies should be to define critical time periods for the impact of adversity and strategies for intervening to prevent or reverse the effects of adverse childhood life experiences.

AB - Traditionally, adversity was defined as the accumulation of environmental events (allostatic load). Recently however, a mismatch between the early and the later (adult) environment (mismatch) has been hypothesized to be critical for disease-development, a hypothesis that has not yet been tested explicitly in humans.We explored the impact of timing of life adversity (childhood and past year) on anxiety and depression levels (N=833) and brain morphology (N= 129).Both remote (childhood) and proximal (recent) adversities were differentially mirrored in morphometric changes in areas critically involved in emotional processing (i.e. amygdala/hippocampus, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex respectively). The effect of adversity on affect acted in an additive way with no evidence for interactions (mismatch). Structural equation modelling demonstrated a direct effect of adversity on morphometric estimates and anxiety/depression without evidence of brain morphology functioning as a mediator.Our results highlight that adversity manifests as pronounced changes in brain morphometric and affective temperament even though these seem to represent distinct mechanistic pathways. A major goal of future studies should be to define critical time periods for the impact of adversity and strategies for intervening to prevent or reverse the effects of adverse childhood life experiences.

U2 - 10.1093/scan/nsv137

DO - 10.1093/scan/nsv137

M3 - SCORING: Journal article

C2 - 26568620

VL - 11

SP - 537

EP - 547

JO - SOC COGN AFFECT NEUR

JF - SOC COGN AFFECT NEUR

SN - 1749-5016

IS - 4

ER -