Dataset Information

Relation of Childhood Home Environment to Cortical Thickness in Late Adolescence: Specificity of Experience and Timing.

ABSTRACT: What are the long-term effects of childhood experience on brain development? Research with animals shows that the quality of environmental stimulation and parental nurturance both play important roles in shaping lifelong brain structure and function. Human research has so far been limited to the effects of abnormal experience and pathological development. Using a unique longitudinal dataset of in-home measures of childhood experience at ages 4 and 8 and MRI acquired in late adolescence, we were able to relate normal variation in childhood experience to later life cortical thickness. Environmental stimulation at age 4 predicted cortical thickness in a set of automatically derived regions in temporal and prefrontal cortex. In contrast, age 8 experience was not predictive. Parental nurturance was not predictive at either age. This work reveals an association between childhood experience and later brain structure that is specific relative to aspects of experience, regions of brain, and timing.

SUBMITTER: Avants BB

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4624931 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Relation of Childhood Home Environment to Cortical Thickness in Late Adolescence: Specificity of Experience and Timing.

Avants Brian B BB Hackman Daniel A DA Betancourt Laura M LM Lawson Gwendolyn M GM Hurt Hallam H Farah Martha J MJ

PloS one 20151028 10

What are the long-term effects of childhood experience on brain development? Research with animals shows that the quality of environmental stimulation and parental nurturance both play important roles in shaping lifelong brain structure and function. Human research has so far been limited to the effects of abnormal experience and pathological development. Using a unique longitudinal dataset of in-home measures of childhood experience at ages 4 and 8 and MRI acquired in late adolescence, we were ...[more]

PMID: 26509809

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundEarly-life experiences have profound effects on functioning in adulthood. Altered cortical development may be one mechanism through which early-life experiences, including poverty and psychopathology symptoms, affect outcomes. However, there is little prospective research beginning early in development that combines clinician-rated psychopathology symptoms and multiwave magnetic resonance imaging to examine when these relationships emerge.MethodsChildren from the Preschool Depression Study who completed diagnostic interviews at three different developmental stages (preschool, school age, early adolescent) and up to three magnetic resonance imaging scans beginning in middle childhood participated in this study (N = 138). Multilevel models were used to calculate intercepts and slopes of cortical thickness within a priori cortical regions of interest. Linear regressions probed how early-life poverty and psychopathology (depression, anxiety, and externalizing symptoms at separate developmental periods) related to intercept/slope.ResultsCollectively, experiences during the preschool period predicted reduced cortical thickness, via either reduced intercept or accelerated thinning (slope). Early-life poverty predicted intercepts within sensory and sensory-motor integration regions. Beyond poverty, preschool anxiety symptoms predicted intercepts within the insula, subgenual cingulate, and inferior parietal cortex. Preschool externalizing symptoms predicted accelerated thinning within prefrontal and parietal cortices. Depression and anxiety/externalizing symptoms at later ages were not significant predictors.ConclusionsEarly childhood is a critical period of risk; experiences at this developmental stage specifically have the potential for prolonged influence on brain development. Negative early experiences collectively predicted reduced cortical thickness, but the specific neural systems affected aligned with those typically implicated in these individual disorders/experiences.

Dataset Information

Relation of Childhood Home Environment to Cortical Thickness in Late Adolescence: Specificity of Experience and Timing.

Publications

Relation of Childhood Home Environment to Cortical Thickness in Late Adolescence: Specificity of Experience and Timing.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets