Altered development of hippocampus-dependent associative learning following early-life adversity.

ABSTRACT: Little is known about how childhood adversity influences the development of learning and memory and underlying neural circuits. We examined whether violence exposure in childhood influenced hippocampus-dependent associative learning and whether differences: a) were broad or specific to threat cues, and b) exhibited developmental variation. Children (n = 59; 8-19 years, 24 violence-exposed) completed an associative learning task with angry, happy, and neutral faces paired with objects during fMRI scanning. Outside the scanner, participants completed an associative memory test for face-object pairings. Violence-exposed children exhibited broad associative memory difficulties that became more pronounced with age, along with reduced recruitment of the hippocampus and atypical recruitment of fr

SUBMITTER: Lambert HK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6684815 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature