Are all threats equal? Associations of childhood exposure to physical attack versus threatened violence with preadolescent brain structure.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Neurodevelopmental studies of childhood adversity often define threatening experiences as those involving harm or the threat of harm. Whether effects differ between experiences involving harm ("physical attack") versus the threat of harm alone ("threatened violence") remains underexplored. We hypothesized that while both types of experiences would be associated with smaller preadolescent global and corticolimbic brain volumes, associations with physical attack would be greater.

Methods

Generation R Study researchers (the Netherlands) acquired T1-weighted scans from 2905 preadolescent children, computed brain volumes using FreeSurfer, and asked mothers whether their children ever experienced physical attack (n = 202) or threatened violence (n = 335). Using standard

SUBMITTER: Delaney SW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8605265 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature