Rethinking Concepts and Categories for Understanding the Neurodevelopmental Effects of Childhood Adversity

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Abstract

Discovering the processes through which early adverse experiences affect children’s nervous-system development, health, and behavior is critically important for developing effective interventions. However, advances in our understanding of these processes have been constrained by conceptualizations that rely on categories of adversity that are overlapping, have vague boundaries, and lack consistent biological evidence. Here, we discuss central problems in understanding the link between early-life adversity and children’s brain development. We conclude by suggesting alternative formulations that hold promise for advancing knowledge about the neurobiological mechanisms through which adversity affects human development.

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Here we report that increased pup licking and grooming (LG) and arched-back nursing (ABN) by rat mothers altered the offspring epigenome at a glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene promoter in the hippocampus. Offspring of mothers that showed high levels of LG and ABN were found to have differences in DNA methylation, as compared to offspring of 'low-LG-ABN' mothers. These differences emerged over the first week of life, were reversed with cross-fostering, persisted into adulthood and were associated with altered histone acetylation and transcription factor (NGFI-A) binding to the GR promoter. Central infusion of a histone deacetylase inhibitor removed the group differences in histone acetylation, DNA methylation, NGFI-A binding, GR expression and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) responses to stress, suggesting a causal relation among epigenomic state, GR expression and the maternal effect on stress responses in the offspring. Thus we show that an epigenomic state of a gene can be established through behavioral programming, and it is potentially reversible.

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The relationship of health risk behavior and disease in adulthood to the breadth of exposure to childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, and household dysfunction during childhood has not previously been described. A questionnaire about adverse childhood experiences was mailed to 13,494 adults who had completed a standardized medical evaluation at a large HMO; 9,508 (70.5%) responded. Seven categories of adverse childhood experiences were studied: psychological, physical, or sexual abuse; violence against mother; or living with household members who were substance abusers, mentally ill or suicidal, or ever imprisoned. The number of categories of these adverse childhood experiences was then compared to measures of adult risk behavior, health status, and disease. Logistic regression was used to adjust for effects of demographic factors on the association between the cumulative number of categories of childhood exposures (range: 0-7) and risk factors for the leading causes of death in adult life. More than half of respondents reported at least one, and one-fourth reported > or = 2 categories of childhood exposures. We found a graded relationship between the number of categories of childhood exposure and each of the adult health risk behaviors and diseases that were studied (P or = 50 sexual intercourse partners, and sexually transmitted disease; and 1.4- to 1.6-fold increase in physical inactivity and severe obesity. The number of categories of adverse childhood exposures showed a graded relationship to the presence of adult diseases including ischemic heart disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, skeletal fractures, and liver disease. The seven categories of adverse childhood experiences were strongly interrelated and persons with multiple categories of childhood exposure were likely to have multiple health risk factors later in life. We found a strong graded relationship between the breadth of exposure to abuse or household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several of the leading causes of death in adults.

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Mark Bellis, Katherine A Hardcastle, Dinesh Sethi … (2017)

A growing body of research identifies the harmful effects that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs; occurring during childhood or adolescence; eg, child maltreatment or exposure to domestic violence) have on health throughout life. Studies have quantified such effects for individual ACEs. However, ACEs frequently co-occur and no synthesis of findings from studies measuring the effect of multiple ACE types has been done.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Perspect Psychol Sci

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Perspect Psychol Sci

Journal ID (publisher-id): PPS

Journal ID (hwp): sppps

Title: Perspectives on Psychological Science

Publisher: SAGE Publications (Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA )

ISSN (Print): 1745-6916

ISSN (Electronic): 1745-6924

Publication date (Electronic): 15 July 2020

Publication date (Print): January 2021

Volume: 16

Issue: 1

Pages: 67-93

Affiliations

[1-1745691620920725]Department of Psychology and Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison

Author notes

[*]Seth D. Pollak, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Madison E-mail: spollak@ 123456wisc.edu

[*]Karen E. Smith, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin–Madison E-mail: kesmith23@ 123456wisc.edu

Author information

Karen E. Smith https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6689-7346

Seth D. Pollak https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5184-9846

Article

Publisher ID: 10.1177_1745691620920725

DOI: 10.1177/1745691620920725

PMC ID: 7809338

PubMed ID: 32668190

SO-VID: 97f4f020-6782-4aa1-af94-aca67ca2c49a

License:

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages ( https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).