Dataset Information

Altered reward and effort processing in children with maltreatment experience: a potential indicator of mental health vulnerability.

ABSTRACT: In this longitudinal study of children and adolescents with a documented history of maltreatment, we investigated the impact of maltreatment on behavioral and neural indices of effort-based decision making for reward and examined their associations with future internalizing symptoms. Thirty-seven children with a documented history of maltreatment (MT group) and a carefully matched group of 33 non-maltreated children (NMT group) aged 10-16, completed an effort-based decision-making task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Internalizing symptoms were assessed at baseline and again 18 months later. Computational models were implemented to extract individual estimates of reward and effort sensitivity, and neural signals during decision-making about different levels of reward and effort were analyzed. These were used to predict internalizing symptoms at follow-up. We identified lower effort-related activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a prespecified region-of-interest, in the MT relative to the NMT group. No group differences were observed in the striatum, or in behavioral indices of reward and effort processing. Lower effort-related ACC activation significantly predicted elevated internalizing symptoms at follow-up in the MT group. These findings suggest that disrupted effort-related activation may index latent vulnerability to mental illness in children who have experienced maltreatment.

SUBMITTER: Armbruster-Genc DJN

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8832084 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Altered reward and effort processing in children with maltreatment experience: a potential indicator of mental health vulnerability.

Armbruster-Genç Diana J N DJN Valton Vincent V Neil Louise L Vuong Vivien V Freeman Ze Z Packer Katy C KC Kiffin Marianne J MJ Roiser Jonathan P JP Viding Essi E McCrory Eamon E

Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 20220211 5

In this longitudinal study of children and adolescents with a documented history of maltreatment, we investigated the impact of maltreatment on behavioral and neural indices of effort-based decision making for reward and examined their associations with future internalizing symptoms. Thirty-seven children with a documented history of maltreatment (MT group) and a carefully matched group of 33 non-maltreated children (NMT group) aged 10-16, completed an effort-based decision-making task during fu ...[more]

PMID: 35149765

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Project description:Importance and objectivesChildhood adversity is a strong risk factor for the development of various psychopathologies including major depressive disorder (MDD). However, not all depressed patients experience early life trauma. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies using facial emotion processing tasks have documented altered blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) responses in specific cortico-limbic networks both in MDD patients and in individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment (CM). Therefore, a history of maltreatment may represent a key modulating factor responsible for the altered processing of socio-affective stimuli. To test this hypothesis, we recruited MDD patients with and without of maltreatment history to study the long-term consequences of childhood trauma and examined the impact of CM on brain activity using a facial emotion recognition fMRI task.MethodsMDD patients with childhood maltreatment (MDD + CM, n = 21), MDD patients without maltreatment (MDD, n = 19), and healthy controls (n = 21) matched for age, sex and intelligence quotient underwent fMRI while performing a block design facial emotion matching task with images portraying negative emotions (fear, anger and sadness). The history of maltreatment was assessed with the 28-item Childhood Trauma Questionnaire.ResultsBoth MDD and MDD + CM patients displayed impaired accuracy to recognize sad faces. Analysis of brain activity revealed that MDD + CM patients had significantly reduced negative BOLD signals in their right accumbens, subcallosal cortex, and anterior paracingulate gyrus compared to controls. Furthermore, MDD + CM patients had a significantly increased negative BOLD response in their right precentral and postcentral gyri compared to controls. We found little difference between MDD and MDD + CM patients, except that MDD + CM patients had reduced negative BOLD response in their anterior paracingulate gyrus relative to the MDD group.ConclusionsOur present data provide evidence that depressed patients with a history of maltreatment are impaired in facial emotion recognition and that they display altered functioning of key reward-related fronto-striatal circuits during a facial emotion matching task.

Dataset Information

Altered reward and effort processing in children with maltreatment experience: a potential indicator of mental health vulnerability.

Publications

Altered reward and effort processing in children with maltreatment experience: a potential indicator of mental health vulnerability.

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